SUNDAY SERMON - Christ Did NOT Die For Every Person
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Summary
In this sermon, Pastor Ken teaches on why Jesus did not die for everyone, and why God did not send his son, Jesus, to die for all sinners. God is infinite, and God is merciful, and in God's love, there is no lack of love.
Transcript
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One final time, our text is 1 John chapter 2, verses 1 through 2. The Bible says this,
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My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
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But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
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He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
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This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated.
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If I was to title this sermon, which I kind of did, I called it limited or that is particular
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or definite atonement. If I was titling it the way that A.D. Robles or Andrew Isker would have
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titled it, I would have called it Jesus Did Not Die for Everyone. That would be the title of the
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sermon. And that would be perfectly biblically true and Christ-honoring, and it's a fine title.
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Jesus did not die for everyone. And the reason Jesus didn't die for everyone is because God is
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just. And it's not to say that some people are not worth dying for, because the true and biblical
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thing to say is that all people are not worth dying for. No one is worth the blood of Jesus.
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And so when I speak to the fact that God is just
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and how that plays into the doctrine of limited
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or particular atonement, particular redemption,
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I'm not saying that some people were worth dying for
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but rather he sent him to die for a subset of humanity some of humanity the good part of
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humanity that's not it's not what i'm espousing that's not what the bible teaches that would fly
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in the face of scripture and logic to say that jesus came to die for the good people well the
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good people wouldn't need him to die there are no good people jesus came to die for sinners
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but not all sinners because God is just so what do I mean by invoking the justice of God what I
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mean is this it is unjust of God who is thrice holy to exact double penalties for the same
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infraction it is unjust say it again it is unjust unrighteous unfair for God is the judge
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of the living and the dead the righteous judge the judge who shows no partiality the judge
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who is fair always fair never lenient but also never harsh it is unjust for that perfect judge
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to punish the same crime twice hell is the wage for sin
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the bible is clear in the book of romans that the wages of sin is death that is the
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eternal death. All will die once. Hebrew says it is appointed to man that he should die once, and then
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comes the judgment. All will die physically at the end of this life. All will die once, but some will
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die forever. That they will go to the second death. That they will go to hell. And what makes hell so
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terrible? What makes it an eternal, never-ending death? Where the worm does not die, and the flame
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is not quenched. What makes hell an eternal death, a terrible, miserable, eternal death, is not that
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God is absent. It is not as though hell is so terrible because God is not there. Hell is so
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terrible because God is there. God is present. King David, underneath the inspiration of the
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Holy Spirit in writing the Psalms, he says this, where can I go from your presence? That if I was
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thrown into the depths of the sea, you would be there. And we saw that with Jonah, that God is
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with him, even in the belly of the fish. And David goes further and says that if I was even not just
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in the depths of the sea, but thrown into the belly of Sheol, that is death, the grave, you would be
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there. God is omnipresent. Now we know this from scripture, but this is also simply logic. God is
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infinite. His infinite nature is expressed in multiple different facets. He is omnipotent.
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That means he has infinite knowledge. There is nothing that God does not know. He is omnipotent.
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That means he is all-powerful, infinite power. There is nothing that God cannot do.
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He is omnibenevolent. That is infinite love, all-loving. There is no lack of love in God's
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part. But he is also omnipresent. There is no place where God is not present, including the depths of
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hell. What makes hell so terrible is not that God is good, and yet God is not there. What makes hell
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so terrible is that God is just, and he is there. God is present in hell, in his justice, his
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righteous, white-hot wrath, pouring out his just vengeance on his enemies forever and ever. Amen.
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Ephesians chapter 1 says that God does all with the elect, with those that he has chosen according
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to his foreknowledge, before the foundations of the world were even laid. Those that he chose by
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grace to save that God does all things for those who are called according to his purposes those
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who love him those who he has saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone he is doing
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all things for them to the praise of his glorious grace so as it pertains to the elect those who
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are to inherit salvation those who will spend eternity in heaven with Christ for those God is
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doing all things for their good, but also for his glory, more particularly to the praise of his
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glorious grace. Likewise, by necessary inference, certainly by way of implication. The other side
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of the coin, we could say this, that God does all things, namely pouring out his just judgment
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as it pertains to the non-elect, his enemies, to the praise of his glorious justice.
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God does all things for his elect to the praise of his glorious grace, and he does all things,
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including just judgment for the non-elect, to the praise of his glorious justice.
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So that no one can indict God. No one can fault him. No one can say to the Almighty that he was
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unfair or that he was unjust or that he was fickle or that he was harsh or that he was mean
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that he does all things well that he disperses his grace well and he pours out his justice
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well it would be just of God to punish all the fact that God saves anyone is not a matter of
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justice, but rather mercy. And because God is just and because the wages of sin is death, the eternal
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death, hell, God will not and did not subject his son to pay for sins that would already be paid for
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by spending eternity in hell under God's just judgment.
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Others have had their sins paid for by Christ at Calvary.
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But to think even for a moment that Jesus died for the world
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and to interpret he did but to interpret that word world to mean each and every individual person who
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has ever and will ever live to interpret the word world in a universal fashion is to say that Jesus
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paid for everyone's sin but for some his payment was insufficient for some even though the son of
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God, God incarnate, bled out and died to satisfy the wrath of God. God the Father looked down on
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the Son's work on the cross and said, Son, it is not finished. Son, it wasn't good enough. Son,
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this payment comes up too short. But that is not what occurred. And that is not the voice of the
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father. The son says it is finished in his death on the cross and by virtue of his resurrection
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three days later the father in essence by raising his son from the dead says it is finished son
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indeed. That is to say that every ounce of our debt against God by our rebellion and sin has
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been atoned for paid for covered in full in full now if jesus died this is very simple but work
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with me for a moment because it it's simple but it's hard like chopping wood chopping wood isn't
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rocket surgery right rocket science brain surgery rocket surgery like chopping wood it's not rocket
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surgery. But that doesn't mean it's easy. Right? It's simple, but it's still hard. You're going to
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sweat. You're going to probably get a couple blisters. If you've been on a strict soy diet,
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you might even cry. So chopping wood, you know, it's simple. It's not complicated, but it is hard,
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not easy. Okay, so what I'm about to express is simple, but it's not easy. And the reason why
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it's not easy, it's simple logic, but it's not easy because people aren't logical.
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We were. We used to be. God has created people, both male and female, in his image.
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We have a moral conscience. We instinctively know that certain things like theft and murder
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are wrong. And we have an ability to reason. We have rationale, not just a conscience, not just
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a moral center, but also a rational center. But because of the fall, Genesis chapter 3,
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human nature has been subjected to the curse of sin. Now the image of God has not been utterly
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lost, but a vestige of the image of God still remains, but it has been tarnished. It has been
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damaged. Our moral center has been damaged. Our consciences have been dulled, and our ability to
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reason has been flawed. And this has happened in a general sense because of the curse of sin,
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because of the fall, because of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3. But I believe that people, as a populace,
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in various places and various times may have their consciences and also their rationale
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extra dulled, even more flawed, because of that culture as a whole, their further rebellion against
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God. For us as Westerners, particularly as citizens of the United States of America,
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In this particular time, the year of our Lord, 2023, logic is something that comes very, very
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difficultly. Very, very difficult. Logic is always a little bit more challenging since the fall of
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man, but it is especially challenging today. We don't even understand the logic of gender.
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We don't even understand the logic of a baby in the womb.
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Some in our culture don't even understand the logic of two plus two equaling four.
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struggle with the logic of God's justice as it pertains to particular redemption.
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if Jesus died for everyone, each and every individual, world meaning universal, and he died
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for everyone and everyone's sin, each person and every sin of each person, then why do people go
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to hell? The immediate counter, of course, is, well, Jesus may have died for each person and for
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each of their sins providing payment for their sin but that's a gift the gift of Christ's blood
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the gift of his atonement the gift of his forgiveness and his payment it's a gift that's
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given and people still have to choose to receive that gift and if people choose not to receive
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that gift but rather to scorn it and to toss it aside well then even though Jesus paid for all
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their sins, all of their sins, they didn't receive that payment, and therefore they go to hell.
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That's the common counter. Here's my counter to the counter. You're saying that Jesus paid for
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each person's sin, all the sins of all people, but they have to receive that payment, and some people
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reject his payment. Is that a sin? Is a person's rejection of Christ's sacrifice and atonement
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a sin? Because you just admitted that Jesus paid for everyone's sin, and not just some,
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but all the sins of each person. Is rejection of Jesus a sin? If so, and it is, did he pay for that
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one? And if not, this is what you have to do logically to reject limited atonement as a
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biblical doctrine, and it is. What you have to do logically is this. You have to say, okay, well then
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I see where you're going. Jesus paid for everyone's sin and every sin of every individual person
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They're not in hell for lying and bearing false witness.
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No, Jesus paid for all their sin. That's your argument. So you have to say the only sin that
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Jesus didn't pay for is a rejection of Jesus' payment. So then you would have to say that
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anyone who goes to hell is only in hell being punished for that one sin, the rejection of
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Christ's payment. And once you've arrived at this step of the argument, then it's easy to dispel
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because the Bible clearly teaches that people will be eternally punished in hell for a variety
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of sins, not only the sin of rejecting Christ's sacrificial work. People will be punished in hell
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for murder. People will be punished in hell for sexual immorality. People will be punished in hell
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for lying and for theft. This is expressed in the book of Romans. This is expressed in the book of
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revelation. And people ultimately will be the object of God's judgment. It is not the ethereal
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spirit of murder that will be punished for eternity in hell. It is murderers.
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Murder won't be punished in hell forever. Murderers will. Adultery will not be punished forever in
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hell. Adulterers will. Lies will not be punished forever in hell. Liars will.
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This is what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that some will go to hell, that they will not be
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recipients of God's saving grace through faith in Jesus Christ, that they will suffer under the just,
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righteous wrath of God for eternity, and his wrath will be poured out not merely for the singular sin
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of choosing to reject Christ and his sacrifice, but a variety of sins, rejecting Christ at the
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foremost, but also adultery and lying and murder and blasphemy and breaking the Sabbath and coveting
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and the whole nine yards, or in this case, 10 yards.
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so people will go to hell and they will be punished for their sin
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and god is just he does not exact double payment for a singular crime if some people go to hell
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and are punished for some sins it is precisely because those sins were not paid for by jesus on
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the cross. If we think about it any other way, then we have to ultimately conclude that God punished
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Jesus fully, the sufficiency of his sacrifice. He punished Jesus for one group of people that
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are going to go to hell, and he punished him fully. And then he said, you know what? Even
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though I've exacted the fair payment for these sins, I'm going to go ahead and penalize these
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sins a second time. Punish Jesus once, and then punish those individuals in hell a second time.
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Jesus on the cross, one punishment. These people in hell, the second punishment. Two punishments,
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one infraction. That's the simplest way to break it down. That is injustice. God is just. Now to
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get some Bible in here, there's the logical arguments, biblical arguments. John chapter 10.
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that Jesus is the good shepherd. And we see that the scripture Jesus talks about, he uses this
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analogy of shepherd and sheep. And he also throws another character into the equation, the hired
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hand. He says the hired hand cares nothing for the sheep. When a wolf or a lion comes into the
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pasture, the hired hand he runs. They're not his sheep. That's why he runs. It's just a job.
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He cares about what the sheep can produce for him.
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And so when there's a threat, when there's a danger,
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than he cares for the protection and defense of the sheep.
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the good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. Now Jesus teaches elsewhere, and the
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apostles pick up on this teaching without, within the letters of the New Testament, that sheep make
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up one portion of human beings. But not everyone is a sheep. There are people who are sheep, but as
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Jesus himself teaches, and the apostles, under the Holy Spirit's inspiration, there are some people
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who are sheep, and there are some people who are goats. We could say really there are four different
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characters when it comes to the makeup of humanity. There are sheep, there are goats, there are shepherds,
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and there are wolves. Now a shepherd, if we're speaking about a person, not Christ who is
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the chief shepherd, that's 1 Peter 5, or the good shepherd, that's John chapter 10, but under
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shepherds, that is human beings, not Christ himself, but someone like me, someone like Connor.
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These would be under shepherds, what we call pastors. Shepherds nonetheless, but a shepherd
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does hold a dual type office. A shepherd is an under shepherd shepherding the flock under the
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chief shepherd Christ, but he is also himself a sheep. In a similar fashion, you could say the
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same thing about the wolves. In a sense, there's a dual office. He is a wolf who preys on the sheep,
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who devours the sheep, but also is, in a sense, himself a goat. So there are goats, and some of
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them are wolves. And there are sheep, and some of them are shepherds. Not the chief shepherd, Christ
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alone. Not the good shepherd, Christ alone. But under shepherds, pastors in local churches. So
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there are goats, some are wolves, and there are sheep, some are shepherds. Jesus says he gives his
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life for the sheep. Ephesians chapter 5, even as, as the apostle Paul writes to husbands and wives,
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he says that husbands should emulate Christ's example. That we should look to the eternal
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marriage between Christ and his bride, the church, and take our cues. And that a husband should love
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his wife as Christ loved the church. And how did Christ love the church? Ephesians 5 goes on to say
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that he loved the church and gave himself up for her. Jesus died for his bride.
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Jesus did not give himself up unto death for the mass of humanity, but for the church,
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lay his life down for the goats or for the wolves,
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not just that we can make this, we must logically and biblically make the argument
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of limited atonement. The last thing that I'll say here is just this. Everyone limits the atonement.
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The Arminian limits the atonement. The provisionists, which isn't really a thing, but they
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limit the atonement. Every, what I'm saying is every soteriological framework limits the atonement.
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the question is simply how. It's not whether, but in which way does your soteriology, that word
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simply means a study of salvation, doctrine of salvation. So your view of salvation, your theology
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about salvation, who God saves, how God saves, what you believe the Bible's teaching espouses
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on the subject of salvation. No matter what view you hold, you believe that in some form or fashion,
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in some way, the atonement of Jesus Christ, that is his payment on the cross for sin, it is limited.
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The only person who does not limit the atonement at all is the universalist, who believes that
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Christ paid for every person's sin and every single sin of every person. And there's a word
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for universalism. It's called heresy. And the irony is that the person who doesn't limit the
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atonement is a person who won't have any atonement and will go to hell for being the heretic that
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they are. So if we want to be orthodox and hold a view within the Bible and not blatant heresy,
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then you must hold a soteriological view, a view of salvation that limits the atonement.
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So at this point, you're not saying, hey, what I believe the Bible teaches about how God saves,
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who God saves. I have a choice between if I want to view God's salvation as being limited or
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unlimited. No, you don't have that choice. The unlimited, that just makes you a heretic.
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So your choice is not, do I want to think that God's salvation is limited or not limited? No,
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your choice is between do I want to think that God limits his salvation in this way or that God
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limits his salvation in another way? Because either way, if it's true, if it's biblical,
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if it's orthodox, it's going to be limited in some form or fashion. And the simplest way that I can
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explain it is like this. The reformed view of soteriology that holds to particular redemption
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or limited atonement. We believe that Christ's atonement is limited in terms of its scope,
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how many people are covered by his blood. The who. The who is the limiting factor.
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The Arminian, and in a different way, but pretty much the same thing, the provisionist,
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But they believe that it's limited not in its scope,
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and I think that we can say as the scripture does in fact explicitly say Christ died for many more
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than just some many but not all insofar as all would represent universally each and every
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individual who's ever lived and ever will Christ did not die for all in a universal sense but he
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did die for many but for those that Christ died for the many he covered in his death
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Meaning that Christ's atonement covered all their sins,
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for their sanctification that they would grow in the fruit of the Spirit, and for their glorification
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that one day this body would come up out of the ground and be new and resurrected with Christ
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forever. What Christ paid for within the reformed soteriological view, what Christ paid for is
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every single thing that he paid in such a way that every single thing necessary for eternal
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reconciliation with God would be not just possible, not just available, but guaranteed.
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See, the Arminian believes that Christ paid. This is the easiest way I can say it. Everyone's
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limiting the atonement. The Arminian, we'll just call him the non-Calvinist, everybody else.
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The non-Calvinist believes that Jesus paid for every single person's sin
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in the sense that he made salvation possible. The non-Calvinist believes that Jesus,
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through his work at Calvary, that Jesus paid to make salvation possible for all.
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The Calvinist believes that Jesus paid for actual salvation for many. I'll say that again.
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The Calvinist believes Jesus paid for full salvation, real salvation, actual salvation for
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many. The non-Calvinist believes Jesus paid for the possibility of salvation for all. See, both
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are limiting the atonement. The Calvinist limited it in its breadth, its scope. For many, not all.
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But full salvation in terms of depth, degree. So the Calvinist believes full salvation for many
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people. This tall, this wide. The non-Calvinist, potential salvation for all people. This wide,
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but only this tall. The non-Calvinist view of salvation is a mile wide and an inch deep.
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The Reformed view of salvation is more than an inch wide. Let's say it's about half a mile wide,
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and I'd like to see a little, I think it's a little bit more. I'm post-millennial, and I do
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believe that the majority of humanity in real terms and numbers will be saved by the end.
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here's the caveat if you're like what what in the world are you talking about how many people
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believe in you know that most people are not safe that's right but we're not done yet right now i
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think that hell is far more populated than heaven but i also think that we got a long way to go i
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think we got multiple revivals in between now and then and i do believe that with the population
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continuing exponentially to increase which is not a bad thing don't listen to bug man right it's a
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good thing, and with the population numerically increasing exponentially, and with thousands
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potentially of years left to go, and with great revivals and moves of the Spirit of God, that by
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the time it's all said and done, that heaven will be such a vast number of people that no man can
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count them, like the stars in the sky, like the grains of sand on the seashore, and that heaven,
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in terms of population, will swallow up the population of hell, so that Christ will be able
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to look to the Father and say, I actually saved the world. And we would be able to echo the Son's
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claim and say, He saved the whole world indeed. So I'm not saying, see, you need this combo.
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You need to be Calvinist slash post-mill maxing. Because if you're just a Calvinist,
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right, you got this red pill going. You understand that the world is trash world. You understand how
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bad things are, but then you're going to be following up that red pill with a black pill.
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If you're just a Calvinist, total depravity. Everyone's really bad. It's like, I'm not going
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to argue with you. All that's true. But if you're just a Calvinist, you got the red pill followed
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with a black pill. But if you're a Calvinist and post-millennial, that's the red pill, white pill
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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,
00:33:33.500
Whereas the Calvinist says, now that bridge is a little narrower.
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,
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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00:36:40.100
of rejecting him which means boom option one you're a heretic and you're going to hell option
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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00:48:52.000
faith, and all of church history, and every single verse in the Bible. You have to abandon the
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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,
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00:49:53.060
according to the flesh, that Jesus is not just the payment, the satisfying payment put forward
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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
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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
00:54:49.240
But what I'm doing is we're all getting together
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,
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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
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children choose. If one of my children, if I said, don't play in the street, and I laid out the
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command, don't play in the street, and they're playing in the front yard, which they wouldn't
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do unless we were there, their mother and I, watching. But let's just say they're in the front
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yard. I'm watching them through the window, and the ball rolls into the street, and there's an
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18-wheeler coming down, you know, 45 miles per hour. The child is disregarding my command,
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disregarding the law that I've laid before them and and one of my girls is running full speed
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into the street and I've got enough time I am physically capable to burst through the front
1.00
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door run and snatch them and grab them before they get hit by that truck in that moment let
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me tell you what I won't do I'm not going to sit by watch it through the window and say
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you are not merciful. If you have that view, if you think of father not overriding the choice
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of his son or daughter to spare their life, I have no words for you. No, good fathers,
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they intervene even overriding the choice of their children when it comes to saving their life.
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and that's exactly what God does for all of his children and the reason why some go to hell is
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because they are not his children and according to John chapter 8 in the words of Christ himself
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those individuals their father is not God but the devil let's pray Lord thank you for your word
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bless it to our hearts and minds help us to believe it help us to repent of our arrogance and our
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pride that we would stop fancying ourselves to be better than you but that we would recognize
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that true mercy, true grace, true love for you and others comes by humble submission to your word
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and your word alone. We pray these things for Christ's sake. In his name, amen.