Address—Josh Stewart
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Let's pray before we begin. Our God and our Father, we give thanks for the happy few days we've had so far and for the encouraging times of fellowship and time spent over the Word. We just pray that we will be kept cleaving to the side of our Lord Jesus Christ, still believing till the hour of our receiving. We just pray that there would be something tonight that would be for the edification and the building up of those who are here.
We just pray that for the speaker to that.
He would say nothing that he does not believe.
As we read this morning, I have believed, therefore I speak. So we just pray that there will be that tonight, which would build up and encourage the people of God. So we just pray this and give thanks in the worthy name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
It's so good to be here.
The subject that I would like to speak on tonight is not an easy subject, but I feel it's a very important subject and there's so much young energy in this room tonight. I see so many children and young people and young families and there's so much potential here. And so I'm sure I can speak for others who have participated in the ministry so far, that there's a tremendous responsibility laid upon us to present.
Thing that would be useful and something that would be helpful to you, something that would strengthen you and build you up in your Christian pathway. What I would like to speak on today is the interconnectedness of Scripture. Interconnectedness that is actually a word. I looked it up, the thought that the Word of God is all connected together. There is a harmony that runs all through the Word of God.
I say harmony, I do not say.
Homogeny. I don't mean that the whole word of God is homogeneous, that it's all the same thing, that every verse is some codified version of the same thought repeated over and over. No, it's not homogeneous, but it's harmonious. And So what I would like to do tonight is just to demonstrate that to you and I trust.
That's that's the positive reason for speaking on this. The negative reason, which is also important is that I hope you can get an understanding of the.
Ramifications of denying some part of the Word of God. It's all connected. And if you pull out one piece, the whole thing falls apart. So very, very important. You know, the Word of God is so important for us. And when I speak of the harmony of Scripture, I'm not. Again, I'm not taking away from the need to divide the scriptures. What do we mean by dividing the scriptures?
Told Timothy that if he was to be a Workman that needed not to be ashamed. He needed to rightly divide the word of truth. That is to show the distinctions between this passage and this passage. Is it talking about the church or Israel? They're distinct and we can get very confused if we don't rightly divide. In fact, that's one of Satan's greatest lies is to say, oh, just lump everything together. There's no good and evil. It's just all Gray. There's no man and woman. There's no male and female.
There's just lumping together. You see it all around the genders, you name it.
So we want to be clear that we need to rightly divide the word of truth and yet what we have before us is a book that is all connected together.
In the New Testament, there are something like it's over 300 quotations from the Old Testament. Tremendous connectivity between the old and the new.
There's stories from the Old Testament, from Israel's history that are recounted in the New Testament and used as types and shadows. And I think it's interesting that the Bible publishers for.
Century, probably centuries, have tried to capture some of the cross references in the center column or a marginal column of references. It's all connected together. So I want to speak about this today because more than ever, ideas, ideas are everywhere. And it's partly because of the day we live in and also the technology that makes the transmission of ideas.
More prolific.
But we're living in a day when you can look up just about anything you want and have an answer at a moment's notice. But a lot of the information that you get is not true. It's not based on this book. So what brings this before me is just this sense in my own heart that we need to be grounded in the truth of this book and we need to understand how that they all fit together.
00:05:08
So very, very important. So I said I wanted to give an example of interconnectedness.
And what I would like to do, this is kind of like a third reason, rather than just haphazardly pick a subject to choose, a subject that I think we need building up in something that I think we need to be encouraged in and to see more clearly. And so I wanted to speak about some of the doctrines of salvation. I feel that we need that. And it's been so helpful for me to see these these truths and I want to try to put them together.
What I have here, one of the kids tell me what they see.
Anyone. How about a young kid?
There is that more clear? Go ahead.
That's right. How many of you like to do puzzles? Lots of people. OK, how many puzzle How? How big of a puzzle can you do 200 piece? Who's done a 500 piece puzzle?
Lots. OK, how about 1000 piece puzzle? Still watts. OK, how about 5000 piece?
One, OK, well, the good news tonight is there's only four pieces to this puzzle. You know, the truth is, is that the puzzle is actually much bigger. I'm just picking four pieces and I want to show how they connect. But really the whole word of God is like a puzzle and it all fits together. But I'm just going to take a small zoom in section of the puzzle to talk about with you tonight.
So I wanted to speak about this interconnectedness in in this area of the doctrines of salvation. And then at the end of the meeting, I want to go back and just show you what happens when you reject one of those, what will happen to the whole thing. And I hope that will be helpful to you. So the first piece of the puzzle, let me see if I can find it here.
Is.
Election and on each piece I have two items together and I want to talk about each of these pieces. And this isn't going to stand up. That's okay. So what I want to do first of all is just talk about election and faith. This has to do with the salvation of man and who's responsible for it. So let's talk about election really briefly. Let's just turn to a verse, Ephesians chapter one.
Ephesians, chapter one.
And verse 4.
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. But what is election? We know what it is. When you elect someone to to a public office, you go to the voting booth and you cast your ballot. You make a choice. You choose between a number of candidates and you pick one. That's what election is. It's simple as that. It's choice.
God.
Voted for you. He chose you in a past eternity, it says. Before the foundation of the world.
He knew you and he chose you, and he decided before you ever existed that he would put you before him wholly and without blame.
In love, isn't that incredible? And it's as simple as that. God chose us. Without that, we would not be saved. And we're going to talk about that more about that in a minute. But if it wasn't for God's choosing us, we would never be saved. But I have something else up here, and that's faith. That's the counterpart to to this election is God's sovereign choice of individuals for blessing. Faith is believing God.
I don't know how much simply I could say it believe in God.
John three, I believe it's verse 33 gives what I've heard is a great definition for faith and I enjoy it. It's he that hath believed God has set to his seal that God is true. Have you ever said in your own heart God is true? That's faith.
To recognize, to acknowledge that God is true. And we read in the New Testament that faith is the prerequisite for salvation. It is by faith that we are justified. Abraham, even in the Old Testament, he believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Justification is by grace through faith alone.
00:10:03
And so we find that we could not be saved.
Unless God chose us in a past eternity. But we could also not be saved unless we believed, unless we had our faith in His Son. God requires faith in His Son. John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not be saved. Faith is required in order to be saved.
Both these things go together.
One is God's prerogative. He chose us. We didn't even exist. We weren't even around when He made this choice. But He did. And this makes us worship when we realize that He chose us. There was nothing good in us, but He chose us. But faith is our responsibility. God commands all men everywhere to repent and to turn in faith to His Son. That's what He wants to see. So one is what God does, the other is what we do.
We have faith now we find in Ephesians that faith is a gift from God. But my point here is our responsibility is to believe.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
Sounds simple. I read you scriptures, quoted you at least quoted you scriptures to support both of these, and there's many more.
This is what the Word of God says. My message to you tonight is just believe it. Just accept it. God says it, Just believe it. Now the problem comes in when we try to logically rationalize these two things, we try to force them together in our mind. And I'm going to talk about that at the end of the meeting, but we're going to set this aside for now and we're going to move on to our next piece.
Which is.
New birth and salvation. New birth and salvation.
Now, I was very encouraged to hear that someone has already spoken on this at this camp. And so I'm glad that you're not hearing this for the first time because this might be one of the more difficult things to bring out tonight. So.
New birth and salvation and.
Let's talk briefly about what these two things are, and let's talk about how it interlocks with election and faith.
So.
Man is utterly lost in his natural condition. We could read back in chapter 2 of Ephesians and verse one and you who were dead in trespasses and sins, we were completely dead. A dead person can't talk, can't move, can't think, can't do anything. That's how we were towards God, completely dead.
We were utterly lost. How then, could we choose God?
If we were utterly lost.
Is there something in us that could choose God?
This brings up the whole question of free will. Does man have a free will?
And if I can just try to briefly say this, on each of these puzzle pieces, you could take multiple sessions to to to go over these. So I just want to go over it very briefly. I believe that Adam in the Garden of Eden created by God had free will in a, in a certain sense, Adam could choose.
Whether he wanted to obey God or whether he as he ended up doing.
Choosing to disobey God. Adam had a human nature, but his human nature was not predisposed to do.
Holy things to do good things. And it was not predisposed to do evil things. It was just a human nature. It didn't lean one way or the other. And Adam had a choice, and Adam used his choice to disobey God. And what happened when he did that? By one man's sin entered the world, and death by sin.
And Adam's nature is human nature fell.
Into a condition of sinfulness, and he gained the knowledge of good and evil. You know the story. I don't need to go over it. But that fallen human nature is what the Bible calls a number of things. The flesh.
Sin that dwelleth in me, sin in the flesh. Now those terms I'm not going to go. And there may be slight differences between them, but generally speaking, what we call the old nature, that's what he got when he, when he fell there in the Garden of Eden, that old nature is predisposed to sin.
00:15:12
Do you believe that?
The Lord Jesus said in John chapter 6 and verse 63, the flesh profiteth nothing. There's just nothing in it that's good for God. Paul said there in Romans Chapter 7, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And we can expound verse after verse after verse that would show that if there's nothing good in man in his fallen condition, how can he choose God?
That is where new birth comes in. OK.
It goes on to say in Ephesians chapter 2 That those who were dead in sins, it says, hath he quickened.
Quickened means to give life, and we need that, and God does that. One day we're going along and God uses His word. We read in John chapter 3. It also brings out the subject. God uses His word by the power of His Spirit, and He quickens us when we're dead in sins and offenses. He quickens us and He gives us a new life.
And we didn't ask for it. We didn't want it.
Sovereign goodness, he just gave it.
And the beautiful thing about that new life is that it has it desires to please God and it has the capacity to believe God. It has the capacity to call out to God.
And so then.
What happens is we're presented with the gospel, some wonderful day, and we believe the gospel, and then we are saved. And what happens when we're saved is that we're sealed with the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit comes to indwell us. These two things don't always happen at the same time. In fact, I believe most often they don't. Most often new birth occurs at some point and then later on.
It could be hours, could be months, could be years later the Holy Ghost comes to indwell someone who has put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And let's just read a verse to show you that because I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to take God's word for it. Chapter one of Ephesians.
Verse 13 and whom he also trusted. After that he heard the word of truth.
The gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. I'm sorry, that is not the verse I was looking to read. But that verse tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us after we're saved, after we believe the gospel. So hold that thought. The verse I wanted to read was actually in John's gospel chapter one.
What I'm what I'm going for is a verse that shows that salvation follows new birth.
So John's Gospel chapter one. Pardon me.
John's Gospel chapter one and verse 12. But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name which were born.
I'm emphasizing were past tense were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
What does this verse tell us? A lot of things, but what I'm bringing out now is that those who believe down here salvation were born previously. They were born of God. So what that tells you, and I just want to show you that so you have a verse, I'm not making this up. New birth occurs and then we believe the gospel. OK, so how does this fit?
Let's put these two pieces together here, see how nicely they fit.
OK.
What happens is that those who God has elected, those who God has chosen in the past eternity.
He comes along and he imparts new life. He quickens them and that.
Life that they're given has the faith to believe the gospel so that they can be saved. You see how these pieces fit together. God quickens those whom He has chosen, and then they receive a life that has the faith to believe the gospel. So they fit together very, very nicely. OK, so let's move on to our next piece.
00:20:02
The next piece I would like to speak about.
Propitiation and substitution. Now these are some really big words and there's some children here. I don't want you to be afraid of these words. I'll try to explain them. But if you don't follow all of this, understand the main point that the Word of God is all connected together. So, so, but these two big words have to do with the work of the cross.
The work that our Lord Jesus did on the cross.
We call that the atoning work of Christ.
That work has two parts, propitiation and substitution.
Very important to see this distinction. OK.
You might say, how does this connect with what we have here? Well, it might not seem connected at first, but.
What Christ did on the cross has everything to do with our salvation. So it's very connected and I want to show you how.
Propitiation and substitution. Let's talk about substitution first. How can God bring a Sinner to heaven?
How can God bring someone who is guilty of sins to heaven? How can he do that and still be righteous? Can someone answer that? It's very simple.
Go ahead.
He can't accept.
Something happened 2000 years ago that made it so he can.
The Lord Jesus died on the cross. Very good. And what happened is on the cross Jesus bore our sins. That means he carried them on his shoulders and he suffered for them to take them away.
And that is what we have here, Substitution. Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ took your place and my place and suffered on the cross for the sins that I committed. It says He bare, He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. It says He suffered the just for the unjust, the just in place of the unjust. He is the just. We are the unjust. He suffered in our place. That's what substitution means.
A substitute teacher is someone who fills in when your real teacher is out sick.
A substitute is someone who stands in the place of one who isn't there. We deserve to be punished for our sins, but Jesus is our substitute. That's what this verse means. That is part of the work of the cross. Now this is something that's not very well understood. Did Jesus?
Die as a substitute for someone who goes to a lost eternity.
I don't believe so, no. You see, God is righteous and if Jesus bore their sins?
How could God send them to a lost eternity? How could they be punished for their sins if they were gone?
It would be very, very dangerous to say that he could, because then what about you and what about me? It would mean that we're not secure if God sends those to hell.
Who since have been paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no security, but praise be to God that's not true.
Jesus bore our sins and our security is fixed and eternal. Amazing, but.
If Jesus died as the substitute only for the elect.
Is there nothing in the work of the cross that is for all?
Can't we turn to scriptures? We just quoted the one in John 316. For God so loved the world. Let's find some others.
Acts 1730 says God commandeth now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. OK, he's commanding all men to repent. Let's turn to second first Timothy.
First Timothy.
Chapter 2.
Verse 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.
OK, so here we find that the work of Christ on the cross was not just for the elect, it was for all. And that is where this word propitiation comes in.
00:25:00
OK, the work that the Lord Jesus did on the cross had another aspect to it that was much higher, and that's why I have it higher than the work of substitution. Both are important, just like election and faith are important, just like new birth and are important. Both are important, but the work of propitiation.
Propitiation is a is a word that might be hard to understand, but it simply means satisfaction. It might go a little bit beyond that, but let's stick with that satisfaction.
There is an aspect to what the Lord Jesus did on the cross that perfectly satisfied God and glorified Him in every attribute of His person.
There is a sense in which and what the Lord Jesus did on the cross that God could look down and be so completely satisfied with it that even if no one was ever saved, he would still be glorified in what the Lord Jesus did.
You ever, I don't want to lower this so I don't mean to be irreverent, but if you ever eaten a delicious meal that was so good that afterwards you were just like, you couldn't feel your legs. You were just so, it was just so good. You were just so satisfied. And you know, when the boss is happy, he gives raises, he gives bonuses.
God is so happy if I can say that. Not just satisfied, but glorified with what Christ did.
That he says, you know what? Open the floodgates. Send the gospel to everyone. It doesn't matter who, whosoever will may come. Call them in from the highways and the byways. It doesn't matter. I am satisfied, I'm satisfied. Send the gospel out to whosoever will may come. That is what propitiation does. It allows God to send the gospel to all.
Let's just read one more verse that I think ties these two together. Romans.
Chapter 3.
Romans 3 and verse 22. This is not propitiation and substitution exactly, but it's the effect of propitiation and substitution.
Verse 22 Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe. I'm just focusing on that last part unto all and upon all them that believe.
It's propitiation. It's the work that Christ did for God.
To glorify God, that allows the gospel here to go out unto all, but it is really substitution that allows it to be as it says upon all them that believe. It's not upon all. In other words, it goes out to everyone, but it only comes to rest on those who have faith, who are the elect. So you kind of get the effect of both of those things. And there are numerous other examples, so let's connect them.
Sorry.
Let's connect them.
Propitiation and substitution. I may have trouble keeping these together, but what I would like to show is how this fits so beautifully with election and faith, with new birth and salvation. It's really substitution, where the Lord Jesus bore the sins he suffered in the place of the elect, but his propitiation that opens up God's heart.
I hope everyone can see this that opens up God's heart to go out to all, to command from them the obedience of faith. So you can see how these are so closely connected together. OK, we're going to see more of this connection when we get to the towards the end of the meeting. But for now, our next clue, our next puzzle piece.
God's glory and man's blessing, OK?
This is more abstract.
If you you know I had the prototype of this puzzle in my wallet for about a year, or maybe more than that. Much too small to show you. That's why I turned it into this poster board.
But you know, you could draw puzzles just like this for many other groups of truths in Scripture. In fact, I've got one for dispensational truth, church truth, prophetic truth, the hopes of the church all linked together. I think this puzzle piece fits in every single one of those. God's glory and man's blessing. Again, there's an order to them. God's glory, first of all, and man's blessing.
And I'm going to try, with the Lord's help, to show you how that's connected.
00:30:01
All right, I'm running out of room here, so I'm going to set these down for a minute.
God's glory and man's blessing.
It's connected for one simple reason, and I'm going to explain more, but the simple reason is this. All truth. All truth eventually impinges on the glory of God and on the glory of Christ. Let's read a verse to show that John 16.
You know, and I apologize if I've missed some references. I have many written down and I'm not going to have time to turn to all of them, But if you feel that I haven't substantiated something.
From Scripture. I'd love to talk to you after. There are many more references we could give.
Let's just read verse 13 and 14. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that he shall speak, and He shall show you things to come. Here's the part. He shall glorify me, for He shall receive of mine and show it unto you, OK?
I admit the language there is a little hard to follow talking about the Spirit of Truth, Holy Spirit.
How the Holy Spirit would come and he would glorify me. The Lord Jesus speaking Simply put, the Spirit of God glorifies Christ if the Spirit of God is glorifying someone and the word of God in the Scriptures, it's Christ if it's in the Old Testament. I still remember when I was reading through Haggai got to the last message in the book of Haggai and is talking about this man's rubble who's going to be glorified and it's.
It's propping this man up in a way. And I thought, this is strange. Come to find out, Zerubbabel is a type of Christ. The Spirit always exalts Christ. That is beautiful. It's beautiful. You know, I've never seen this simple litmus test fail. If a doctrine exalts Christ, if it makes nothing of man but exalts Christ.
Generally speaking, it's it's a true doctrine if it exalts man and takes away from the glory of Christ.
Generally speaking, it's a false doctrine.
And I've never seen that fail so well. What is God's purpose? Let's go back to the book of Ephesians for a verse.
Again, one of those verses that could be read in just about any occasion and not be out of context because it's so broad, so foundational. God's eternal purpose. Ephesians chapter one and verse 10. That in the dispensation, well, let's just read verse 9. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ.
Both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. Pause there. We're going to read the next verse. God's ultimate purpose, his ultimate goal is to glorify Christ, to set him up as the exalted, glorified one over heaven and earth. And secondly.
In whom also verse 11, we have obtained an inheritance. He's going to bring men into blessing in association with Christ. So first.
God is going to glorify His Son. He is going to get glory for His Son, that one who was rejected, who was crucified, who was cast out, He is going to get glory for Him. That one who glorified God on the cross, that propitiation that we talked about, God is going to see to it that He has the highest place not only in heaven but on earth. That is His ultimate aim. But praise be to God, He also has blessing for us.
And he will bring us into blessing. He'll bring.
You into blessing if you don't believe, If you're not a believer tonight, he can bring you into blessing if you just believe by faith in His Son. He'll bring the church into blessing in a wonderful way in the Millennium on into the eternal state. He'll bring Israel into blessing. He'll bring the nations into blessing. His heart is to bless.
But His glory comes first.
The United Song of Heaven.
When we get to heaven, we're not going to be praising ourselves. We're not going to be praising ourselves. We're not going to be, I believe, thinking about ourselves. This is our song.
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created. His glory is paramount. Well, how does this fit?
00:35:12
With our puzzle today, this fits with our puzzle.
Somehow this thing ends up being more stable when it's all connected, and I didn't intend that, but there's some truth to that. When you have all the pieces, it ends up being more stable. This fits with our puzzle. Somewhat stable. This fits with our puzzle.
And that all the glory for our salvation goes to God and not to us.
We're going to talk a little bit in a few minutes about what happens when we deny one of these pieces. What happens is man gets in there and says, I want to take some of that glory for myself. What happens is he strips it away from God, or he would if he could. But you know what? Trying to get glory for himself.
He ends up detracting from his own blessing.
When we simply accept what God has said, God is far more glorified and man is far more blessed. So remember that.
It all comes down to the to the glory of God and to the blessing of man. Let's just read one more verse before we talk about.
What happens when we interject into what God has said with our own minds?
Just turn over with me to Romans. I want to read this because.
It's been so.
Wonderful for me.
And again, a lot of the truths that we're talking about here have to do with God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, and Romans 9:1010And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (Romans 9:10) and 11:00 deal precisely with that. So if you would like to read more, Romans 9:1010And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (Romans 9:10) and 11:00. Incredible. The way the apostle Paul lays out his arguments 1 by 1 by 1, I cannot understand.
I can't understand but I struggle with how.
How believers can reject this? It's so clearly laid out there, but I say I understand because there's something in my flesh that wants to reject it. But Romans 11, he summarizes Romans 9, God's sovereignty. Romans 10, man's responsibility, He comes to the end of it all. Let's read verse 32. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief.
That he might have mercy upon all. Just pause there for a second. We're not done.
In the process of these two chapters, what the apostle Paul showed was that the Jews who Christ was sent to rejected Him, and as a result they have been set aside in unbelief. But that the Gentiles who God has now come out to in grace, they too will not continue in faith and will be set aside in unbelief, so that He will conclude the whole world.
In unbelief that he may show mercy upon all. In other words, God is laying everything flat.
No one can say I did it. The Jew can't say I did it. The Gentile can't say oh, I did it. Everyone has to just reverently speaking, shut up.
And recognize that God alone is worthy of the glory that we did nothing of ourselves. It was all Him. He gets all the credit. He flattens the landscape as it will, if you will. He paints it all white and just a.
Spoiler alert, in the next epistles he builds upon that the truth of the church, but he shows that it's all flat, that God gets all the glory. And then the Apostle Paul bursts into praise. Let's read it.
Owe the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him? And it shall be recompensed unto him again, for of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever.
Amen.
The apostle Paul gets to the end of this and he says, who could have thought of this? Who could have come up with this? Only one. That's God. All the glory goes to him.
The more we study this book, the more we study the Word of God will be brought to our knees with the Apostle Paul.
00:40:03
Singing this song.
Saying this praise.
It's all of him. So I just want to encourage you with that so we have these pieces.
It's just briefly summarize them how they're all connected together. God in a past eternity chose some, but he also requires in time that man believe in his Son by faith.
But how can he believe if he has a fallen nature? God works the new birth.
And gives man a nature that now has the capacity to believe. He then believes.
And he is saved and sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Then we find how was man saved? Both because the Lord Jesus suffered in the place of those he chose of the elect. He bore their sins in his own body on the tree. But broader than that, God's heart is opened through the propitiatory aspect of atonement to go out to all men.
And finally, all the glory goes to God, and as a result of what Christ has done, of God's sovereign choice of His work, man is blessed. So that's how these pieces fit together. Now, I may have missed one or two or three, and we could talk about other pieces that fit in here. I just wanted to keep it simple for today and show you these pieces and how they fit together.
Now I want to speak.
In the last few minutes about what happens when.
Human wisdom.
When the natural mind of man, the butcher of all things good, enters into the things of God with his clumsy hands, what is going to happen to this puzzle? OK, First Corinthians deals with the subject of man's wisdom. I just wanted to pick out two verses. We'll just read those two verses.
First Corinthians chapter 2. I encourage you to read this book if you're struggling with.
Human wisdom coming into the things of God.
Verse 13 First Corinthians 213 Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth.
But which the Holy Ghost teaches.
So important that our.
Doctrine comes from what the Holy Ghost is teaching.
Not from What man's Wisdom Teaches, Chapter 4 and verse six. I just saw this maybe.
Four months ago, maybe we're reading through this in our assembly readings, and I noticed in critical translations there's a difference in how this is versus rendered.
Middle of the verse that you might learn in US. I don't have my new translation that you might learn in US. Something like the lesson of not letting your thoughts go.
Above that which is written. Wow. That is what human wisdom is when our thoughts go above that which God has written, God says.
That he sovereignly chooses who to save. And he also says that man is responsible to believe. Can you understand that? Can you logically put those together, Matt?
Josh.
What happens is if we try, smoke will begin to pour out of our ears. Or what we will do is we will eventually deny some part of the word of God. He has spoken. The place for us, the place of blessing, is just to accept it, just to believe it, just to accept what He says. Even though we can't wrap our minds around it. Who do we think we are?
Did the word of God come out from us? Paul could say to the Corinthians later in this epistle. No, I didn't. You are responsible to accept what God has said.
Because He is God after all, you and I are creatures and He has spoken. The only way we can be blessed is in dependence upon Him. So man's wisdom enters in and what I would like to do is speak about what happens with this piece here first. This is the one I started with. Election and faith.
Man's wisdom comes in and he says, you know well who really gets the credit for man's salvation.
Did God really choose, or does man choose? Does man choose God or does God choose man? And this opens up something called the free will debate. And I'm not going to get in. I don't have time and I don't think it'll be profitable to get into this whole subject. But there are two sides of this debate. And all the way to one side in the trench, if you will, is something called Calvinism.
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And the other side, all the way into the trench, is something called Arminianism. One is named after John Calvin, the other after Jacobus, Arminius and.
Both, I believe, are a result of human wisdom coming into the things of God and trying to rationalize it. We can't do it. What ends up happening is we end up denying one piece or the other. OK.
So.
I have false pieces over here. So have you ever done a puzzle where you had more pieces in the box than you needed to complete the puzzle? Well, that's kind of what this puzzle is like. So let's say we say we don't like this piece. OK, we're going to cast aside election and faith and we're going to instead deny election or faith. And I'm I wrote this so you could go either way. You could go off into one ditch or off into the other.
The the result in some ways is different, in some ways it's the same.
What happens in Calvinism is that they cling tightly to the sovereignty of God, which we commend them for because the Scripture supports that and it's wonderful. But what they do is they end up adding to Scripture and subtracting from it. They add to Scripture in that they say God predestinated people to heaven and some to hell. Well, first of all, predestination isn't the heaven or hell. It's to be conformed to the image of his Son. But God never in Scripture. We never read that.
Predestinated anyone to a lost eternity. We never read that.
In fact, Romans 9 look it up for yourself right where you would expect it to say that God.
Ordained people for destruction. It doesn't say it. Instead it says that they were fitted vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction. But they fitted themselves for destruction, just as Pharaoh hardened his heart.
Never says that. So they add the scripture there, but then they also take away from scripture.
When it comes to propitiation and substitution, what ends up happening is they end up denying this propitiatory aspect of atonement and they end up saying that you know what, there's no part of the work of Christ that's for all that Jesus. There's no part of what he did. That was for all. It was only for the elect. And that's what they call the doctrine of limited atonement. I'm happy to tell you today, atonement's not limited, it's because of propitiation.
Substitution, in a sense, is limited to the elect. A propitiation is unlimited. God's heart, He's so satisfied. How could it be limited?
So they end up denying that OK, and.
Let's talk about the other side, Armenianism. And again, there are those who are one side or the other of the free will debate. I believe it's not scriptural, but some of them are all the way into one ditch where they hold the double predestination. And there's a whole range here, OK? But I'm just bringing out to you the logical consequences of denying, OK?
So on the other side, there are those who cling so tightly to our responsibility that they deny God's sovereignty in election. And they say, you know, it's really man who has a free will and he's the one who chooses God. And So what they end up saying is.
Over here, these puzzle pieces, I'm going to show you in a minute, they don't fit together. If you do it wrong, they say, you know what, this new birth business, we're going to confuse it with salvation.
They don't actually go through that thought process, but it's inevitable. What happens is they say man is lost, but what happens is God is so gracious that somewhere down in man's heart there's a little spark of something. And if God were to fan that little spark, it would grow into a little flame. And that little spark is enough for man to take that first baby step forward towards God, and that kicks off the whole process.
Salvation.
Ultimately, it comes down to not really understanding that man is truly lost. Again, Calvinist, they would both say man is lost, salvation is of God, it's by grace. But when you question them, they have a different definition of lostness. They have a different definition of grace. And so I just wanted to bring that out to you. And again, when we get down to propitiation and substitution, the Arminianist.
Well, they can't see substitution.
Because if they see substitution, it brings out that aspect that Christ died for me and he died for you. They can't have that. So they end up only seeing. Actually what they end up doing is they end up taking the sin bearing aspect of substitution, which is for those who have faith and they attach it to propitiation, which is towards all. They end up muddling these things together is really what they do so.
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Enough said. Let's let's walk through this for a minute.
What happens, kids, when we take denial of election or faith and try to put it with new birth and salvation? How many of you have ever had this situation when you're building a puzzle?
So what do we do? We could proceed forward with the puzzle.
But what do you do? Go ahead.
Do you know if you ever got to a place where you have two puzzle pieces that they kind of fit, but they kind of don't fit?
You just keep building or do you stop? What do you do?
Exactly, couldn't have said it any better myself. So what they end up switching it out with is.
This piece here confusing new birth and salvation. I'm sorry if I'm favoring one side of the room.
Those put together very nicely, OK.
But now not only that.
Oh, we got another situation over here. Tab is too big, it won't fit. Do you get out the hammer?
I've done that a few times. Maybe the manufacturers were a little off with their stamp. No, it's never that way. It's always the wrong piece and you've got, again, search for another piece. And So what we come up with is confusing propitiation and substitution. Okay, those fit together now.
Is going to be a really tricky.
Finally, we try to fit our last piece and as you can expect.
It doesn't fit. Pieces don't fit where they're supposed to go. You say I don't really want to take away from God's glory or man's blessing, but you know, it doesn't fit. Something doesn't fit with these doctrines that I'm holding. So what do we do? Sadly, cast it aside and we pick up.
A piece that detracts from God's glory and actually ends up detracting from man's blessing as well.
How sad.
Can someone tell me though?
Can someone tell me?
Something that's a little bit different.
About this puzzle.
Than about the other puzzle, I tried to make it obvious. Go ahead someone.
Back there.
Actually, no. Those are actually in the right order, right? Yes. Anything else? Look close, look close. Go ahead.
Yes, those are supposed to be bullet holes. I tried. There's a bunch of holes in it. I didn't want to give you the impression that this puzzle piece fits together as beautifully as the real one, as the truth of God. There's still a bunch of holes, but you know, generally the thing holds together. Can someone, and I'm looking for an older one here. Can someone tell me a verse?
That talks might talk about what happens when we get a whole system.
Of errors that all work together.
I think someone might know.
Anyone.
Steve, can you think of a verse?
OK, what is it?
That's right, it's Ephesians 4.
Let's just read it.
I see our time is just about gone.
Ephesians 4 and verse.
See where am I looking here verse 14 that we henceforth this is talking about.
Accepting the gifts that God has given to his church, He's given all these gifts. Apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, so on.
And.
The point of him giving these gifts was that this is one of the reasons that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, in the sleight of men, and in cunning craftiness. And my margin says unto the systematizing of error. It's not there in the King James. Unto the systematizing of error.
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So what we have is falling apart, but what we have when we have all these pieces that fit together.
But they're all a denial of the Word of God in some way is a system that all fits together.
But it's error, and many people fall into that because there's an explanation for how these pieces fit together, but they're all.
In disagreement with the word of God. So I just wanted to bring that out to you to be faithful tonight. If we begin by denying.
Something of the Word of God setting something aside. What's going to happen is it's going to lead to the next piece and the next piece and the next piece, and before long we'll either end up in one of two places. We'll reject the whole Word of God.
Or will end up mired down in a system of error.
You and I are never going to logically rationalize the mind and ways of God. We're never going to do it. But we can be blessed, we can be built up, we can be edified if we simply accept what He says.
And it'll be to the glory of God and to our blessing as well. Let's close in prayer.
Our living God and our Father. We just pray as we close this meeting that there would be something that would.
Build up and encourage each one. Here we think, especially of the younger ones, we think of the.
The frequency of the attacks of the enemy. We think of the proliferation of false doctrines. We think of the the technology that makes it also available to us. We just pray for each of these dear young people and children and two, for those who are parents, that we will be preserved from falling into systems of error.
But we just pray in a positive way.
That we would see the beauty.
Of Christ all through the scriptures and that we would come to know it and enjoy it and be established in it. So we just pray these things and in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.