Published: October 12, 2014 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: The Five Points of Calvinism - Part 6
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well this morning we're going to continue discussing the doctrine of total depravity what I hope to do with each of these five doctrines realizing
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that might take me a little bit beyond term is to to lay out the doctrine from scriptures and and then to deal with the most common objections and so this
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morning we're going to deal with the objections of the Armenian to the doctrine of total depravity and I have a number of scriptures that you you may want to turn to or upload or just write
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them down but these are passages that are used by the Armenian to indicate that the unregenerate the sinner has the
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ability to believe and that that ability and that requirement of believing is incumbent upon the sinner in order to regeneration the first are in Acts
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chapter 2 and chapter 3 familiar I think to most people as the first sermons preached by the Apostle Peter Acts
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chapter 2 and verse 38 now I'm going to read from verse 36 to give it some context therefore that all the house of
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Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified now when they heard this they were pierced in the
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heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles brethren what shall we do and Peter said to them repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of
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Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit chapter 3 verse 16 is
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very similar very similar he's Peters now talking about healing that was done him and he says verse 16 and on the
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basis of faith in his name it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence
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of you all now those two passages talk about faith and repentance and those those two words
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repent and believe represent the call of
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the gospel to all sinners in Acts chapter 17 Paul says that God is calling on men everywhere to repent so repenting and believing are often
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considered theological II to be the two sides of the coin of conversion that you can't have one without the other so
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together they represent the the act or the the process of conversion now I think obviously the question between the
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Armenian and the Calvinists is whether or not the sinner is capable of believing and this is one of the reasons why reformed theologians I think prefer
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total inability to total depravity the word depravity has a different meaning today than it did in the past depravity
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in the past meant a lack today to be depraved it means pretty much morally empty morally wicked and and so the word
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depravity tends to connote in most people's mind very very wicked people and and that is a stumbling block because the doctrine doesn't teach that
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all men are as absolutely bad as they could be really what it teaches has nothing to do with the conduct of man it has everything to do
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with man's inability to bring himself to God in salvation yep
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[Music] 2:38 says repent and be baptized yes and
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let each of you be baptized yeah the Church of Christ does put emphasis on that verse now you know you can always turn to verse there are other verses where like chapter 3 verse 19 repent
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therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord okay so there's a verse from
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Peter that doesn't include baptism so baptism is a tricky one you know because we we do maintain that it is necessary but it
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is not necessary to your salvation the classic example is the thief on the cross who obviously was not baptized but Church of Christ does go to chapter 2
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verse 38 to kind of their proof text of the need for baptism in order to salvation so we go back to the question
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can man do what the gospel requires him to do because as far as this is concerned the Armenian and the
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Calvinists are in agreement okay there and this is why I'm saying that generally this is a this is a
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disagreement I consider it to be a disagreement within the family I don't consider our minions and our minion believers to be by that fact unregenerate I think they're uninformed
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and they married they may very well be unregenerate but that's also true people in the reformed camp we don't know the heart of men God knows the
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heart he judges the heart but from a from the standpoint of the gospel repenting and believing in Jesus Christ is a point of common ground between the
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two sides but that's where the commonality ends because we don't agree on the process or the order of events that takes place another passage in John
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from the work from the mouth of our Lord John chapter 6 again this is a familiar passage where Jesus is asked what must
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we do to work the works of God and in John chapter 6 verses 28 and 29 verse 28 and then they said therefore to him what
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shall we do that we may work the works of God jesus answered and said to them this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent this is the work of God that you believe
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on Him whom he has sent so again the requirement of believing is undeniable but that doesn't answer to
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the ability of believing Sam
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yeah the general call of the gospel is and must always be repentant believe those churches that have abandoned the doctrine of sin and even the avenge up evangelistic techniques that that focus
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on human needs or God has a wonderful plan for your life or give up and let God take over you know that type of stuff now that's not the gospel the
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gospel has to focus on the dire situation of man in sin and the Arminian in general will agree that the sinner is dead in trespasses and sin I'm going to
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give you a quote from Dave Hunt that I think is quite remarkable for its audacity but I think hopefully you'll find it the same Neal
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Paul Paul makes that clear to the Corinthians what you have have you not received and therefore what makes you to differ from the other guy and I think Paul is very clear throughout that and I
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might believe even in these passages that we've read it's it's clear that it is God who makes to differ not man and he does so according to his inscrutable
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will except they won't yeah I agree with
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you Neil I think you'd have to do away with the whole book of Romans except I have to say that one of their leading proof texts is from Romans and I'd like you to turn there Romans chapter 10
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again a very common verse that we're familiar with that the problem here is I do not believe the problem is that these people are you know are minions are
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unregenerate I don't think that's true I think many i but i was Arminian and and i believe i was regenerated i think they're wrongly taught and i also think
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that there is the the common use of proof texts in the modern church systematic theology and and the languages especially greek have fallen
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out of vogue in many bible schools and seminaries and what has replaced it in men in many seminaries is church administration program development and
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there are many of them that now teach marketing demographics that they'll take away Greek and they'll teach demographics so that you know your community and you know how to reach that
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community what kind of music what kind of you know what's the age group this community that you're pastoring so that you can cause your church to grow well that's what's going on in the Western evangelicalism it's it should be
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no surprise to us that the theological foundations of the faith have been rotting and they have and so you you get and and you if you read books like this
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debates between our minions and Calvinists you I don't want to sound I think there's a I've said before there's a grave danger of reformed people
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becoming arrogant in their in their pride of knowledge just as an Armenian could become arrogant in his pride of belief I mean there's a danger to all of
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us Romans seven you know that sin which dwells in our members is still giving us a hard time but when i when i read armenians in defense of our minion ism i
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just can't help but be astounded by the shallowness of it by the picking and choosing of a part of a verse here and another verse there and never dealing
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with the fundamental issue of what sin has done to man we talked about that last week is this is this is intimately tied up with our doctrine of sin and if
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you believe that man is capable of responding to the gospel call in and of himself then you have a faulty doctrine of sin but sin is a bad word in most
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churches Robert Schuller told us a while back that you should never mention that word it turns people off it'll cause people to leave so you know that's
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that's what we have that's what we're facing in modern professing Christian de David where any of the Judaizers
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regenerate I can't know but those that were I would trust were convinced by the Apostle Paul's arguments and abandoned
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their Judy izing tendencies that he wished they would mutilate themselves yes yes and I would say the
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same thing any other teaching including any any teaching of the gospel that either insinuates or explicitly states that salvation is a joint effort between
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God and the sinner that is a that is a false gospel okay I haven't met too many Armenians in my experience who did brag
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upon their own believing in their own case they have almost universally given the credit to God for their salvation
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their fear their their bid deepest fear is not for themselves oftentimes it's for their children and one of the
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problems that we have is that we do love our spouses our children our parents oftentimes more than we love our Lord and and we will abandon God's revelation
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of himself because it seems to mitigate against the possible salvation of our children and that's where I have found the doctrine of Calvinism most opposed
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it's not in their own it's not that they they come to me and say hey listen I believed I've got something to show for it I haven't written in my Bible the date that I believed that didn't usually go
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like that they usually give all the credit to the Lord for their salvation even their hymns like Charles Wesley Charles Wesley was for the most part and
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incredibly reformed our mini and hymn writer frankly I think he was reformed but he was afraid of his brother Sarah no serious John Wesley was was quite a
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dominant personality Charles was a lot more laid-back and reserved and was a lot closer to George Whitfield but if you read the biographies of those men
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you see that Joe Charles never left the loyalty he had to his brother I think overrode his his his heart and then he writes hymns that we have in our
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you know in our Blue Book in the Trinity hymnal we don't have any hymns by John Wesley in our and our hymnal so yeah this is all theology God knows our heart
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and the regenerate are not judged on the basis of their knowledge they're judged on the basis of being born again through
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the blood of Jesus Christ sadly and we've talked about this in Thursday nights that there is a distinction between the deceived and the deceivers and I think we need to maintain that there are far
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more deceived than deceivers and I think we can have a different attitude toward those and I think Paul did too you know he he was very compassionate and earnest
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to the Galatians you know I am as in in labor with child birth again that Christ be formed in you but as far as those who had troubled their souls he didn't have
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much time at all for them as far as the deceivers were concerned he had some really harsh words for them and so I think that should be our attitude as well those who teach and preach a
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synergistic gospel will have to answer for that before the Lord
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they they are if a child for parent is emphasizing an outward act and then trusting in that outward act and especially in our modern climate when that outward act does not then result in inward change then they are all
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participating in a false gospel and as you said unwittingly what the parent has done is elevated to his or her love for the child over his or her
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love for the glory of God and and that's a serious danger but in Romans chapter 10 we have that classic passage verses 9 and 10 that if you confess with your
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mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you shall be saved for with the heart man believes resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses
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resulting in salvation and then verse 13 for whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved
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finally Dave Hunt quotes Hebrews chapter 7 verse 25 where the writer says that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God now all of these
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passages we have to admit talk about something that the sinner is doing the sinner is calling upon the name of the Lord the sinner is believing in his
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heart that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God he is coming unto God and Jesus is able to save to the uttermost he is repenting he is believing he is being baptized now I
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think we have to admit that that this gives in a sense of kind of a prima facie support for the Arminian view and and then our own experiences often
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confirm that that the time the moment in time where we maybe put that date down in the front of our Bibles we believed we prayed a
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prayer some of us may have walked down an aisle or signed a card or raised our hand or whatever you know we've all been in a sense products of 20th century
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American evangelicalism which is predominantly Armenian how many of you were brought to the Lord within an
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Arminian context okay I certainly was and also there does appear if you look at and it's easy to look at numbers if
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you look at evangelistic outreach rallies revivals numbers of people sizes of churches it seems like the Reformed
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churches are not doing evangelism and again that's one of the you know the the common arguments of the Armenian is is I would rather do evangelism my way than
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not do it your way and the art the Calvinist is accused of being anti evangelistic well God knows those who are his why bother okay so there there
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are some valid concerns here on the face of it and the reason I point all that out is not to I'm not I'm not yielding on the doctrine or on the theology but rather trying to recognize that we have
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an uphill battle to convince people that it is God who saves and and no part man is running up against what man sees with
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his arms and a number of scripture passages that do declare the very same thing repent and believe call upon the
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name of the Lord and you will be saved believe in your heart and confess with your mouth these are things that the sinner does but are they things that the
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sinner does prior to regeneration or as a result of regeneration are these things things that the sinner
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and trespasses and sin are these things the sinner can do and I think the argument comes down to the fact that a true statement of the requirements for
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salvation do not necessarily argue the ability to fulfill those requirements think about it when has it not been a requirement to
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salvation for man to believe on God Hebrews 11 doesn't that teach us it's always been by faith right
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Romans you know you mentioned Romans it wasn't it wasn't Abraham's actions it was Abraham's faith that was accredited to him as righteousness all the way back
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to Abel to Abel we're told than the lineage of faith it was faith that made Abel's sacrifice to differ from Cain's so it has always been
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faith right so we're not in a different situation here if man is rendered unable
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through sin to believe and because of sin unwilling to believe does that force God to change the requirements of
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salvation is he required to grade on the curve since he knows I can't believe does he change his requirement to do the
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best you can or be better than your neighbor or give a lot of money to missions does he change anything of regarding to the requirements now see
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man's inability does not obligate God to change his requirements for salvation so in the scriptures state those requirements they are true though man is
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incapable of responding to them
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that's right we don't know which is which so we have we have exactly the same call as the Arminian because it's the scripture call repent and believe but we differ from the Arminian
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in that we don't believe that the unregenerate sinner has it within himself to do so does that make sense
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see what the Arminian is basically saying is that God has somehow changed the rules because of man's sin well God doesn't change that way he's not a man
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that he should repent and so when we read these passages we freely acknowledge oh yeah that's that's absolutely right absolutely right we must for the sinner must repent and
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believe in order to be saved he must confess with his mouth he must believe in his heart he must call upon the name of the Lord that's not the issue the issue is whether he can do that and the
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Armenian says yes and the Calvinist says no for example Dave Hunt argues from Hebrews 7 that Jesus is able to save those who come unto God but he
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conveniently leaves out John 6:44 where Jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and
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really if we wanted to do a tit for tat we could do that for every verse the one I read chapter 2 verse 38 of Acts well that verse also says they were
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pierced to the heart right chapter 3 verse 16 it says the faith that comes through him has made this man whole okay
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if you read these passages carefully you realize they're not saying that was anything in man that that warranted or initiated the grace of God or even
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completed the circuit we want to use that analogy what are there's nothing in man that completes the circuit what we're seeing is the result of what God has done in the hearts of these people
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they are responding now I have a diagram up here that I think is hopefully will be helpful to to look at the difference I'm going to use two different colors I'll use the red for the Arminian we've
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looked at this a little bit before but I'm hoping that this might be helpful we have the general call I'm going to go ahead and use that term of the gospel
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which is alike between the Arminian if the Arminian and the Calvinist is preaching the true gospel then he is preaching repent and belief okay we all
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agree on that but what the two men think then takes place is very different for the Arminian the Arminian the general call kind of rolls around in
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the mind until until the man believes resulting in regeneration okay now if
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you if you question whether that is the case I'm going to read an incredibly astonishing passage from Dave Hunt's
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response to the doctrine of total inability he says James white has used in his essay the miracle of regeneration
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which theologians in the reformed camp said that that's the issue here his regeneration Dave Hunt responds he says of course quote only the miracle of rage
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raishin can remedy unquote spiritual death but Peter says that sinners are born again by the Word of God which by the gospel is preached well frankly I
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think Dave Hunt has just given us the game at that point we are born again by the Word of God which by the gospel is preached he goes
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on to say this though and and this is a non-sequitur of astounding proportions clearly those dead in sin can and must believe to be regenerated clearly then
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you always question when a writer says that okay clearly means I'm about to follow with something that is not clear at all at all so I need to tell you upfront that it is clear clearly those dead in sin dead in
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sin can and must believe to be regenerated I mean I read something like that I think that is astounding you
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would think that the Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures could have come up with a different metaphor than death if he wanted to indicate some degree of
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ability on the part of the sinner to then respond to the call of the gospel wouldn't you death doesn't bring into our minds a great deal of ability it
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seems to magnify inability does it not powerlessness right and yet he says clearly the man who is dead in sin must
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believe can and must believe in order to be regenerated
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well Paul does say in Romans six and I had this passage down there for our review he talks about slavery and he says that verse 20 of Romans 6:4 when
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you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness therefore what benefit were you then receiving or deriving from the things of
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which you are now ashamed for the outcome of those things is death he Paul does speak in terms of the regenerate man offering himself up again
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as an instrument or a slave to sinful passions I don't think the Arminian can deal with passages like that slavery is
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a very powerful metaphor talks about our bondage that really comes in to the doctrine of free will and I and as I said before these doctrines are so
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intimately tied together that it would be very easy for me to go directly from total depravity into irresistible grace but what I want to do and that the
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proper order of these would be the unconditional election and the limited atonement would be first what God has done and purposed to do from eternity
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that's what we would talk about first so the next things would be total depravity followed by irresistible grace those two really do go together but to stay with
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the common tulip we've separated them and so when we come to irresistible grace we're going to talk about the Armenian doctrine of free will well what
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Neal is saying is absolutely right Luther wrote in his treatise the bondage of the will that man's will is bound in sin what he does we acknowledge he does
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willingly like all Calvinists acknowledge that man has a will that is free in the sense that it is not coerced and that it exercises its choices and
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its actions willingly but in all cases according to its nature which has fallen in sin okay what we really want to focus
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on here with total depravity is that the true nutshell the true kernel of the gospel that Jesus gives to Nicodemus you
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must be born again and I would say with respect to what Neal bullet pointed out that if an Arminian can find some
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ability of human choice in death they'll find it in slavery too does that make sense in your thinking if they can grant
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the sinner some type of ability to respond to the gospel though he be dead in sin then they'll find some ability for the man who is a slave to sin to
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find an ability to free himself though there'd be none
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the spirit of Antichrist yeah I have no idea except that the only thing I can say and I've read through this book and and I I would recommend it because I do think it's in it is important for us to
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understand those who differ because I think that by that we may be able to reach those who are have been deceived and bring them to the knowledge of the
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truth as to those who exercise such vigor in defending and propagating these doctrines I frankly wouldn't want to be in their shoes and I can't understand
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the motivation except that there must be there is something within their minds that is more important to them than the glory of God through salvation
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whether it be evangelism or the salvation of their loved ones or something like that there's something in their mind that still wants to ascribe to man some of the boring say I'm a
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that's a good point the doctrine of election is probably the one where the Arminian is going to stumble most frequently especially as it is stated through the doctrine of
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limited or definite atonement because that doesn't pinch upon both their own salvation and that of their children and their loved ones what if my child is not
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among the elect and there are very few people sadly there should be many more but there are very few of us who will honestly and sincerely say to God be the
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glory there are very few of us like Joad who can accept the the death of his children with such equanimity definitely with grief and with mourning but would
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never a word spoken against God okay and that's really when we come down to what is it that drives us are we driven by the glory of God now they would say they
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are - they're driven by the glory of God through the salvation of their children but God will be glorified through the judgment of the unregenerate as well as through the salvation of the elect he
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will receive glory in judgment as well as in salvation and redemption and we don't like the thought of God not saving
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our children and so yeah that has a lot to do it election is a major stumbling block and we'll be talking about that next with unconditional election but let's move on
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here to the to the reform view because again the reform view you have the general call of the gospel which comes
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into the mind but you have the effectual call coming into the heart and by the
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ordinance of God as Paul says through the foolishness of preaching men shall be saved these two things necessarily come together
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Romans 10:9 and 10 you must be born again John three that the work of God in the heart is inextricably linked to the
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preaching of the gospel to the mind I don't hold as the Catholic theologian Hans Kohl developed in the late 20th
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century that there are invisible or ignorant Christians he believed that there were Christians who didn't even know they were Christians that somehow
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God can work in the heart of people without them ever hearing the name Jesus Christ know that they would say the
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effectual call is is not a separate thing it is it is just the result of a sinner responding to the gospel but our minion theologians do not make a
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distinction between the general and the effectual call the general call is and I think David you mentioned that's the call of the preacher that's the call of
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the gospel that is what man is the the the minister of the gospel is burdened with bringing that began in Romans 10 of the apostle goes on to say he says how
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then shall they call upon him whom they have not believed and how should they believe him whom they have not heard and how sure they hear without a preacher so that's that's the that's the if the
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general call is through the preaching of the gospel and on that point we're in agreement with the Armenian but they do not acknowledge the effectual call because that's not preached by the by
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the preacher that's preached by the Holy Spirit and it doesn't come apart from the general call that they come together there there is a general call that we
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issue to the minds of sinners we convince them we try to persuade them of their sin of their whole we try to convince them and persuade
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them of the the necessity of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and even was it which was it Felix one
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of the Romans or was he Agrippa but one of them said to Paul if I keep listening to you I will be convinced to become a Christian just like you you know and we've had people perhaps well I remember
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specifically a man in our church years ago who actually said that you know you make a convincing argument and I asked are you convinced he said no I guess it
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wasn't all that convincing but but see that didn't bother me I didn't feel the need to continue to argue with him because I know I can't convince anybody to be saved and he can rattle around in
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a person's mind for years and years and years and they can be sorely tormented as Martin Luther Watts and they will remain sorely tormented by the truth of the gospel and unable to respond in
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faith until this happens and that is only by the grace and in the timing of God pardon me
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it is in different places it's in places like where Jesus speaks to his disciples and said God has granted you to see things like that God has given you a
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heart to believe Ephesians 2 that the faith or even the one I mentioned in Acts chapter 3 that the faith of which we speak is through him or from him and
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not of yourselves case of Lydia in fact I have her thank you I have her down here oh where was that I wanted to use that that God for me 16 yea the Lord
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opened her heart right thank you here it is chapter 16 of Acts verse 14 and a certain woman named Lydia from the
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city of Thyatira a seller of purple fabrics a worshipper of God now that's an interesting statement there I mentioned before that the worshipers of God among the Gentiles
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were those who attach themselves to the Jewish synagogue but did not go so far as to be circumcised now liddie of course was a woman she did not become a
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Jew she was called a worshipper of God was listening and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul and then there are a number of passages you you have to look for them I
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think in first Thessalonians Paul says that but whenever we read in Ephesians chapter 2 you who were dead in sin God made alive and you read that and you
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realize that every time it's talking about salvation and the actual act the actual process man is always passive and God is always active God is doing
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something and man is receiving it Sam
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quickening yeah it's making alive and that's the key metaphor is that unless God makes alive man is dead that's this
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up here and sometimes God does that in judgment does he not he did through Jeremiah Jeremiah was responsible to blow the trumpet as it was Ezekiel but
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he also God also told Jeremiah don't pray for these people don't ask me he said even if he mentioned Daniel job and Elisha I think even if they were praying
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for these people I would not listen and so there and Paul says that the gospel that we preach is a fragrance and a stench it is a fragrance to those who
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will believe in a stench to those who will not so we tend to think that the gospel is always good news to everybody but no it's it's a word of judgment it's
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a word of stumbling in ovo offense to the unregenerate and to the reprobate and and so hopefully this diagram helps but you know you we know people who who
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have the gospel truth rattling around in their brain for years and we always tend to think me or they're closed they're closed well close is only good and hair
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grenades and horseshoes it doesn't work in salvation clothes is not going to get you there now we're gonna have to deal with this because this is troubling because people people then say well how
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do I know I'm among the elect we're gonna have to deal with that so be patient when we get to irresistible grace I do believe that the the Christian has every reason to stand firm
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in his or her faith and that God gives manifestations of his regenerating work in such a way that we can say
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I am numbered among the elect not because of anything that is in me or anything I did but because of what I now see God has done in me I can now confess
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Jesus Christ as Lord and continue to confess and will by His grace continue to confess not because of the strength of my faith but because of the
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faithfulness of my god let's pray father we do thank you for your word