Introduction and Overview
Tom Shrader launches a multi-week series on the doctrines of grace, explaining that salvation is entirely a work of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from election to glorification. Drawing from John 6 and John 10, he contrasts a God-centered view of salvation with a man-centered one, showing that fallen man cannot come to Christ on his own and that God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose. He grounds the series in Scripture rather than in Calvin or any theologian, calling the congregation to set aside preconceptions and engage the material over the coming weeks.
“We have two very distinct views of salvation. One is a view that says God did it all. The other produces a theology where God's important, but so am I, and when I believe that, they have radical ramifications on the rest of my life.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: salvation, grace, election, God's sovereignty, redemption, faith, Scripture, helplessness, new believer, doubting salvation, questioning faith, seeker, longtime churchgoer, skeptic, small group member, feeling unworthy
Scripture: John 5, John 6:37, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 10:11, John 10:27-28, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Romans 8:29-30, Romans 10
Theological Themes: doctrines of grace, total depravity, unconditional election, soteriology, God-centered salvation, glorification, effectual calling, biblical theology
Full Transcript
The Miracle at the Pool and Its Spiritual Meaning
As we worked our way through John chapter 5, there is a story at the beginning — a story of a healing. When we see these stories of miracles, a physical phenomenon is clearly being communicated to us, but behind them there is always a spiritual truth. I told you the last couple of weeks that we would come back and look at this story and try to capture at least some of what God has in mind for us in this miracle.
The miracle in John chapter 5 involves a man who has been sick for 38 years. He is at the pool of Bethesda, and the belief was that when the waters stirred, the first sick person to enter the water would be healed. This man is there. We don't for a second think he is there every day, but he has been sick for 38 years, and he is there now — he has a providential, divine appointment with the Creator God.
Jesus encounters the man in verse 6 of chapter 5 and asks a rather odd question: "Do you wish to get well?" The man said yes, but explained his problem: he has no one to get him into the pool. This raises all sorts of interesting questions. Why would he come there? Why would he even be there if he had no chance? The answer is that God is at work — God has him there for this divine appointment.
Jesus says to him, "Arise, take up your pallet and walk." The man is healed. There is great rejoicing, and then all of a sudden the Jewish leaders say, "Wait a minute — this is the Sabbath. You are carrying that pallet on the Sabbath. You are violating the Sabbath." The man says it was the one who healed him, and when they ask who that was, he says he does not know, because at that point he did not know who Jesus was. Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. Later, the man and Jesus have a very brief reunion.
There is a physical truth here, but there is also a spiritual picture. That man represents you and me in our natural state. As helpless and hopeless as he was physically, that is how helpless and hopeless we are spiritually. God has a divine appointment with His people — He has arranged those moments in time when some of us will see that truth, hear that truth, and respond.
Introducing the Series: God's Plan for Salvation
As I started putting that together, it sounded an awful lot like the doctrines of grace. Knowing that we were coming to that point, I asked the elders whether it would be appropriate to go back and do a series titled "God's Plan for Salvation." This is something we have done about every two years for a while. It is at the core of what we teach and believe here at East Valley Bible Church.
The elders said absolutely. It has been two years, and there are people here who have never heard these doctrines taught in a systematic way. We certainly do not skirt them when we encounter them in Scripture, and they are at the core of many of the things we teach and believe — yet it has been two years or more since we have looked at them systematically. Most of you probably received an email or e-bulletin from me this week letting you know that we were going to begin this series tonight, called "God's Plan for Salvation." If you did not receive that e-bulletin, you need to register on the attendance sheet and we will add you to that list.
For those of you who have joined us in the last two years and have never been through this series, you may be wondering what exactly this means. Some of you have been around for a while and already understand these truths, and yet even with that understanding it is important to go through them again. I received quite a few emails in response to the one I sent out, and two of them are representative of what I heard.
The first said, "I love these times when you teach this important stuff. Has it really been two years? I love learning new things each time. I will be praying for you." The second said, "I am thrilled that you are going to be presenting this series of messages again. I had an opportunity to listen to you teach on this topic two times, and through the truths that I learned from your teaching, God has radically changed my life."
I share those because I want those of you who are new to this — those of you who said this is unfamiliar territory — to understand that this is important, life-changing material. What is going to happen over the next six or seven weeks is that your view of God is going to get bigger and bigger, and your understanding of yourself is going to get smaller and smaller.
How This Series Came Together
This series really began for me years and years ago when I started running into people and had a hard time answering some of the questions they asked. People would ask what church I was with, and I would say East Valley Bible Church. They would ask what denomination that was, and I would say we are not a denomination. They would ask if we were an independent church, and I would say we are a Bible church. They would ask what we teach, and I would say generally the Bible. They would ask what we believe, and I would say we believe what the Bible teaches — and point them to our doctrinal statement on our website.
You get questions like that too, from people in your life. The moment that really packed this together for me was when I was at Forest Home, teaching during a summer camp week. We were toward the end of the week and had a social night out by the pool — a band was playing, tables were set up, and people were gathered together.
Setting the Stage
People were gathered around with their friends, and they came from all over — Southern California, Arizona, everywhere. I was going around saying hello to the people at each table when I came to a table with four or five people, all from the same church. I said, "How are you doing?" Great. "What's going on?" Having a blast. Things are going good. They said, "Tell us about your church."
I said, "Well, what do you want to know?" They asked what kind of church it was. I said it's non-denominational. They asked if it was independent, and I said, "Independent, I guess, of man, and totally dependent upon God." They pressed again: "What kind of church is it?" I said it's a Bible church. They asked what we teach, and I thought — I'm never going to see these people again, so why not answer them in a way that will, as my grandpa says, jar their preserves? I decided to shake them up.
So I said, "We are Calvinistic." It was as quiet at that table as it is in this room right now. One man looked at me and asked, "What's a Calvinist?" Another said, "You know what they are — those are the people that believe we're just robots and God did everything." A third said, "Well, he doesn't believe that." And another replied, "I think he really does." The debate went on: "He's not a Calvinist — you've been watching him all week, he's laughing, they're having fun, he's not one of those." And the other said, "I think he is. Look at him."
Apparently Calvinists are short, portly people. I don't know. I walked away deliberately leaving them in confusion, and I walked away reminded of how much this world doesn't understand some very basic things.
Why We're Addressing This Now
If you've been around for a couple of years, you may have never heard us talk about Calvinism. It's not that we're ashamed of it — we aren't. It's not that we don't agree with the teaching — we agree with much of it. It's simply that when we raise it as an issue, people form a caricature, just like those people at Forest Home did, and we don't typically have an opportunity to sit with you and work you through what it really means. But now we do.
I've tried over the years to figure out the best way to teach the doctrines of grace, and I think the best way is the way we're going to do it over the next six or seven weeks. There is a huge burden here — a burden on you and a burden on me. The burden on me is to communicate clearly. A friend of mine says, "Don't speak merely to be understood, but speak so you cannot possibly be misunderstood." That is the burden I feel, and the one I'm willing to carry for the next six or seven weeks.
You have a burden as well: to listen closely, to track along, and to not get distracted. Distraction can happen in a variety of ways, and one of the most obvious is this — you hear something, your mind begins to think about it, you start playing out scenarios and what-ifs, you have questions, and all of a sudden you've lost track of what is being said. Don't let that happen.
I'm doing a couple of things to help. By Friday of each week, you can download the notes for the following Sunday, so you can come in with the notes already in hand. We may make some last-minute changes, but you'll have ninety to ninety-five percent of the material ahead of time. I want you to listen closely, and I think it's important that you commit to being here. There is no way you can listen tonight and walk out saying, "I've got this figured out." You don't even know enough after tonight to reject it. But you owe it to yourself to understand it.
Rejecting Caricatures
One of the things that drives me nuts is when I hear people say, "I'd never go to East Valley Bible Church — they're those Calvinistic, narrow, closed-minded people." And most often that comes from people who haven't got the foggiest clue what they're saying. They're spending their spiritual, theological, and intellectual capital on a caricature of the truth, and not the truth itself.
I've discovered through my time out in the community that there aren't many people who are neutral about East Valley Bible Church. They either love it or they hate it, and that's fine with me. All that tells me is that we've put our cards on the table. We're not holding anything back — and this is a core of what we believe.
We do not believe this, by the way — and this is part of communicating clearly — because John Calvin taught it, or Martin Luther taught it, or because the greatest minds in theological history taught it. We believe it because the Bible teaches it. Paul taught it. Peter taught it. The New Testament writers taught it. The Old Testament teaches it. Jonah said salvation is of the Lord. It is all through Scripture. Jesus' very words teach it, and I'm going to try to show you that tonight by way of introduction.
A Personal Appeal
I want to make a strong appeal to those of you who are going to have an almost visceral, gut-level negative reaction tonight. I am genuinely sympathetic to you, because I had the same reaction when I heard it for the first time. I hadn't been a believer very long. I was invited to a friend's house where he had a guest speaker in, and that man used as his text a kind of overview of a book called *The Sovereignty of God* by A.W. Pink. He was teaching about sovereignty and salvation, and how God chose those —
Two Views of Salvation
On March 6, 1980, I was at McCormick Ranch, and I asked Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior. I made a decision for Christ. I am the one who weighed the facts and followed Him. After a conversation with someone who challenged that understanding, I pushed back hard. He said, "Your battle is not with me, or Pink — your battle is with the Scripture."
The next day I was reading through 2 Thessalonians, and I came to 2 Thessalonians 2:13, where Paul writes: "We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." For three years I went back and forth — I studied it intently, walked away, and came back again. It took me three years to wade through this. You can do it in seven weeks here.
This is not merely an academic study. Those of you who know me know that I am not particularly intellectually curious, and I am not into burning brain cells on things that don't matter. But this is not that kind of discussion. This is a discussion about the gospel — the heart of the Christian faith. This is how you and I were moved from sinner to saint, and it is a critical issue.
The Two Positions Defined
We have two very distinct views of salvation. One says God did it all — that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit intervened in our lives. God the Father chose us before the foundations of the earth. The Son died on the cross for us. The Holy Spirit, at the appropriate time, opened our eyes to see that truth. Under this view, our salvation is utterly and entirely dependent upon God.
The other view says yes, God did important things, and Christ certainly died — but ultimately it is up to you. I used to attend a church where the pastor taught it this way: God has voted yes, Satan has voted no, and you cast the deciding vote. Those are two very distinct views, and each one, carried to its natural conclusion, produces a very different result.
One produces a theology that is wholly dependent upon God — an understanding that God is the one who saves, that God is sovereign in all things, including salvation. The other produces a theology where God is important, but so am I. And when I believe that, it has radical ramifications on the rest of my life — on my praise, my worship, my thanksgiving.
What Calvinism Actually Is
I am going to use the term Calvinism, because I think we can work with it and understand it. I am not going to give a deep theological treatise — I just want to go to Webster. Here is how Webster defines Calvinism: the group of Christian doctrines of John Calvin and his followers.
Let me be clear about something I have said before: Calvin teaches these things, but he did not invent them and he did not discover them. These are truths taught in Scripture. Throughout this series we will be happy to quote Calvin, Luther, Sproul, MacArthur, Boyce, and others — but only because they quote Scripture. We agree with them not because of John Calvin. There are things about Calvin we would not agree with. Our pursuit is to understand what the Scripture says, what the Bible teaches.
When Webster refers to Calvin's followers, he would include people like Luther, Knox, Zwingli, Owen, Edwards, Bunyan, Whitfield, and Spurgeon. Among modern teachers, Sproul, MacArthur, and Boyce. And I will tell you about another staunch Calvinist: William Carey, the father of modern missions.
One common objection is this — if God does all this work, why would I do anything? That is a faulty conclusion. God typically uses human instruments to convey His message. Paul writes about this in Romans 10: How will they believe if they have not heard? How will they hear without preaching? How will there be preaching if someone is not sent? When you get to the very core of the modern mission movement, you will find a Calvinist there.
Unpacking Predestination
Webster identifies two primary teachings within Calvinism: predestination and salvation by grace. We will take a look at each one.
Predestination is a compound word. "Pre" means beforehand. "Destination" is the place we are going. Put them together and you have predestination. In its most elementary form, predestination means that our final destination as believers is decided by God. God has intervened in our lives, changed our destination from hell to heaven, and He does that work.
That may seem contrary to your own personal experience. Perhaps you made a decision, or perhaps when you were a child someone phrased it this way: you asked Jesus into your heart. The question is not whether you made a decision. The question is why. Why did you make a decision? Why did you respond and not someone else? Why did you respond and not your parents, your kids, your spouse?
The Flip Side of Predestination
Share the gospel with two friends, and one of them seems to get it right away — they say, "I've been waiting all my life for this." The other doesn't respond. Why the difference? Is one person smarter than the other? No. God is working in one person's life. He opened their eyes to see it at that moment, and they saw it. But what about the flip side? Is the reverse true? Does God intervene to keep people away who are wanting to come to Christ — predestining them to hell? Is that the other side of this coin?
That is the question for Session Four. Predestination, very simply, is this: God intervenes in our lives and changes our final destination. And as we return to the definition, there is a second part of it — that the salvation of the elect is solely by God's grace. It is entirely a work of God.
Saved by Grace — or a Joint Venture?
Here is what I discover when I talk to Christians. At the initial asking of the question, most Christians will agree with this. If I ask, "Do you think you're saved by grace?" most people say, "Well, yes — it's pretty hard to argue with Ephesians 2:8-9. I'm saved by grace." So you believe you're saved by grace? Yes. You believe God saved you? Yes. You would agree with the very simple three-word sentence: God saves sinners? Yes, I do.
You believe that God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — performed as the actor in that sentence. God, the noun, the actor; saves, the action; sinners, the object — you. Yes, I really do. God did everything relating to salvation. "Well... not everything. I had a burden. I have free will." So you don't believe that God did everything. So you don't actually believe you're saved by grace. You believe you're saved in a joint venture project between God's grace and mercy and your action. "Well, if you say it that way..." That is the way I'm saying it. That is what it says.
Do you see how important this is? This is the gospel. Charles Spurgeon writes: "I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what is nowadays called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel unless we preach the sovereignty of God."
This is not theoretical. This is at the heart of who you are and how you were saved. You sang the song — "Who Am I?" How do you understand that? You will never understand it apart from this. As I said before, this is not a dry, dull, academic study with no practical ramification. We can jump-start your praise and worship right here tonight. What happens as you begin to see this truth unfold is that God is magnified and you are minified. God gets bigger and bigger, and you get smaller and smaller.
A Brief History Lesson: Arminius and the Remonstrance
Let me give you a quick history lesson. I hear from parents all the time that their kids don't know anything about history. But I have also discovered that parents are not always sharp on history either — especially church history. So I want to take you back to the early 1600s and to the Netherlands in particular, and introduce you to a man by the name of Jacob Arminius.
The New Dictionary of Theology provides this general introduction: "Considerable discussion had arisen in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century concerning the understanding of divine sovereignty. This centered for a period in the teaching of Jacob Arminius, a Dutch theologian."
Here is the picture. The church had moved along through the centuries. It had its struggles, but generally there had always been a consensus about this body of truth called the gospel. There were always aberrant beliefs, but they were recognized as outside the mainstream. Then Arminius began to grow in popularity and develop a following. Significantly, he was a seminary professor — which made it even more consequential, because he was now shaping future generations of preachers and pastors.
Out of Arminius came the document known as the Remonstrance, dated 1610. It is mildly confusing, so I will keep it simple — because I am simple and repetitive. You have to understand this to understand the struggle that followed. The Remonstrance contained essentially five points.
The Five Points of the Remonstrance
The first point is that God's election is based on the foresight of man's faith. Arminius acknowledged that election is clearly taught throughout Scripture — he could not escape it. But his explanation was this: God's election is based on His foreknowledge. Since God is all-knowing, He looked down the corridors of time, saw that on a particular date a person would make a decision for Him, and then, in a sense, did a preemptive strike — choosing that person before they could choose Him. That, according to Arminius, is what election really is.
The second point was that the intent of Christ's death was to bring salvation to all human beings. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the price for every sin of every person who would ever live. The intention, in this view, was to save everybody.
The third point was that fallen man is incapable of any good without intervention by the Holy Spirit. On the surface that may sound agreeable, but what Arminius meant by intervention is that the Holy Spirit is intervening in everybody's life equally. Fallen man — natural man — is a term you will need to understand over the coming weeks. What we mean by it is every man, woman, boy, and girl who comes into this world apart from God...
The Holy Spirit Is No Gentleman
From Christ — that is the condition, the natural spiritual condition that we are born in. We need help. We need assistance. And that saving grace can be resisted. The Holy Spirit is working in everybody's life, but we can resist that.
Years ago, my girls were, I don't know, eight or nine, and they were in a Salty play. Remember Salty, the blue singing songbook? Some of you are younger with kids and have VeggieTales — you may not even know about Salty. Well, these are our spiritual roots: Salty, the blue singing songbook. So they were in one of the Salty plays, and one of the songs they had to learn was a song that taught — in fact the title was — "The Holy Spirit Is a Gentleman." The Holy Spirit always knocks. If I remember this particular piece of heresy accurately, it said that He would not even come in.
That is pretty popular in our day and age, isn't it? "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," and God is just knocking and waiting and waiting, just hanging out knocking. In reality, I cannot let that sit. In reality, God is like a DEA agent who kicks that door open. He is not knocking — He is going to knock that door open and come in, and not just say, "How are you doing?" as a gentleman. He is going to rip out your dead heart of stone and put in a live heart of flesh.
That is not what Arminius thought. Arminius also had to wrestle with the question: if I am truly regenerated — in other words, if I am really a Christian — can I lose my salvation? And he said, "We just need to study it more."
The Five Points of Arminianism
There are a couple of things I want you to see. J. I. Packer writes this: "Arminianism made man's salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man's own work." So here is what Arminius taught. When you take these doctrines — and they became known as the doctrines of Arminianism, the teaching of Arminius — that God elects based on foreknowledge, that God's intention is to save everybody, that man needs God's help but can resist that help, and that he could lose his salvation or not — these became the five points of the Arminian remonstrance.
In response to this, a senate, a meeting, a study group was called: the Synod of Dort in 1618. The purpose of this gathering was to examine these five points of the remonstrance and to compare them — and let me say it, this is now the third time tonight — not to Calvin, not to Luther, not to Augustine, but to Scripture. And they did. They discovered that these doctrines were incompatible with Scripture, so they rejected the teaching.
Resources for the Study
I want you to see something here. We will have resources for you. The decision to do this study was made so quickly that Aaron did not have time to get the books in — they should be in by next week. Chuck Holmes loves to say, "You are just fifty dollars away from being a Calvinist." So if we can get you the right books, we will have those for you next week. One of them is called *The Five Points of Calvinism* by David Steele and Curtis Thomas.
In that book, they write this: "No doubt it will seem strange to many in our day that the Synod of Dort rejected as heretical the five doctrines advanced by the Arminians, for these doctrines have gained wide acceptance in the modern church. In fact, they are seldom questioned in our generation."
Why This Matters Today
So here is what happened. Arminius came and said, "Well, wait a minute — God elects based on what His foreknowledge is of what man is going to do, God intended to save anybody and everybody, fallen man needs God's help but he can reject that help." And the church in that day and age called it heresy. In our day and age, Arminianism is the dominant view.
That is why you get that caricature when somebody says, "Do you guys really believe those doctrines of grace?" Yes, we do. "How can you believe those things?" Because the Bible teaches them. And they were the mainstream of the Christian faith for hundreds and hundreds of years. The minute you begin to give them away, you find a theology that is very man-centered — you find exactly the world that you and I live in.
Steele and Thomas continue: "Salvation was viewed by the members of the Synod as a work of God, a work of grace from beginning to end. In no sense did they believe that the sinner saved himself or contributed to his salvation. The ability of fallen man to believe the gospel was itself a gift from God, bestowed upon only those whom He had chosen to be objects of His unmerited favor. It is not man but God who determined which sinners would be shown mercy and saved. This, in essence, is what the members of the Synod of Dort understood the Bible to teach."
The Five Points of Calvinism
Now it was not enough to simply reject these doctrines. The Synod came back and said, "Rejecting these is not enough. We need to respond, and we are going to respond with what they called the five points of Calvinism." They looked at the situation and said, "We are going to compare these things to Scripture — they are incompatible — and it is not enough to reject them. What does the Bible teach?" That is our question too: what does the Bible teach?
They put forward five points in response, because Arminianism had at its core five points, and attached the name John Calvin to them. These are the five points of Calvinism, and they will become the basis for our study. Did Calvin teach them? Yes, he did. Are we studying them because Calvin taught them? No — we are studying them because the Bible teaches them.
Here is a helpful way to sequence them, and I want you to see that they flow from Scripture. The first point is that fallen man on his own cannot — and that is the key word, cannot — believe the gospel. The second is that God's choice of a sinner is the sole cause of salvation. The third is that Christ actually died to save people — in other words, when Jesus died on the cross, He did not make salvation possible for everyone; He made it real for some. In the broadest sense, if Jesus died for everyone —
The Contrast Between God-Centered and Man-Centered Theology
If Christ died for everyone, then everyone would be saved. If He died for no one in particular, then in that sense He died for no one. He didn't die for everyone — He died for some. God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose, and those chosen by God, redeemed by Christ, and given faith by the Spirit are saved forever. Do you see the contrast between that God-centered theology and a man-centered theology?
Let me give you a practical sample of this. Here is a song we sing here at the church. Listen to it in light of what we just talked about. It is called "Without You":
*Without you I would have no hope, I'd be all alone without you. Without you I could not be strong, I could not go on without you. Who would I be if you didn't love me? Who would I be without you? Who would I be if you didn't save me? Who would I be without you?*
And the answer to that is: I would be a lost, wretched sinner without you. Do you see how those words come to life? So when I sing something like "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me," I am not saying Jesus did His part and now I will do mine. No — it is Amazing Grace because He did it all and saved a worthless wretch like you and me.
Why We Study These Doctrines
This is now the fifth time we have covered this material. We study it not because it is Calvin or Luther or any of those men. We study it because the Bible teaches it — and more specifically, because Jesus taught it. He taught these five points. We will study each of them individually over the next five or six weeks, but tonight I want to move through all five quickly, going back and forth between John chapter 6 and chapter 10.
Point One: Fallen Man Cannot Believe the Gospel on His Own
The first point is this: fallen man on his own cannot believe the gospel. The key word is *cannot* — this is a question of ability, not permission. Here is what Jesus says in John 6:44: "No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."
If you can find even one verse in the Bible — not ten, not five, not two, but one — that says natural man has the ability to come to Christ on his own, then the rest of this begins to fall apart. But what you find, between this verse and 1 Corinthians 2:14, is a teaching that is absolutely crystal clear. It is not implied — it is explicit. Natural man does not have the ability to come to Christ.
Point Two: God's Choice of a Sinner Is the Cause of Salvation
The second point is that God's choice of a sinner is the cause of salvation. We can look again at John 6:44 — "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" — or John 6:65: "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted by the Father."
Absolutely, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. But why would I come at all? Because God caused it.
Point Three: Christ's Death Actually Saved His People
Third, Christ's death actually saved His people. Jesus says in John 10:11, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep" — not the goats, not those who would not believe, but for His own. When Jesus died on the cross, He actually accomplished His purpose. When He said "It is finished," He meant: I have saved the people I came to save from their sin. He did not make salvation possible — He secured the salvation of His people.
Point Four: God's Grace Always Accomplishes Its Purpose
Fourth, God's grace always accomplishes His purpose. Jesus says in John 6:37, "All that the Father gives me will come to me." I will give you a glimpse of what we will explore more fully when we reach Romans chapter 8. Paul writes: "For whom He foreknew He predestined, and whom He predestined He called, and whom He called He justified, and whom He justified He glorified." He did not lose any along the way.
Point Five: Those Saved Are Saved Forever
Fifth, those chosen by God and redeemed by Christ and given faith by the Spirit are forever saved. After Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd," He continued: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand."
That is great comfort for us, and it is not a license to sin. It is a truth that says: if I am genuinely converted — if on this day, October 17, 2004, at this very moment you are truly a Christian — you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there. At this moment you have an unbreakable union with God through the Holy Spirit.
That communion may not always be vibrant or vigorous — and that is because of our sin, not because of anything on God's part. Some of God's people can sin in ugly ways, and it may be ugly to watch at times, but nothing can break that union if it is real.
The Glory of God as the Center of Salvation
One author writes this: "A proper discussion of salvation centers on God, not on man, and the primary goal of redemption is the manifestation of the glory of God." That is why we cling to these truths. They flow from Scripture, and they glorify God. They magnify God and minify man. As John the Baptist says, "He must increase, I must decrease." Nothing will accomplish that faster than an understanding of these truths.
Ground Rules for the Series
The Bible is our final authority. We will quote Calvin, we will quote Luther, we will quote Sproul, we will quote Steele and Thomas and all that, but ultimately our final authority is the Scripture. Not your experience or my experience, but the Scripture.
The second rule is that we are not going to run ahead. You have to proceed logically here. You would be foolish as a junior higher to run in at seventh grade and say, "I want to sign up for calculus," when you haven't had math. You have to proceed logically through this sequence. I know from years of discussion on this, you are all going to want to run ahead to all these different topics, and it is a waste of time. We have to go in sequential fashion.
We will answer the what-ifs in due time. Didn't Jesus say, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life"? Sure He did, but that has nothing to do with what we are covering right now — we will talk about it. Doesn't the Bible teach that it is God's desire that none would perish? Yes, it does, and we will talk about it. Doesn't John tell us that Jesus is the propitiation for the whole world? Sure it does, and we will work through it — but we are going to do it in order.
Setting Aside Your Background
Here is the last thing I need from you: set aside your own background. I have had people come to me and say, "My mom and my dad are godly, godly, godly people — more godly than you are." I have no doubt about that. They were the ones who shared Christ with me, they were the ones who shared the gospel with me, and they are the ones that led me to the Lord — and they reject this stuff. They hate this stuff. They don't believe it. I am sure they are godly people and you love them and respect them, but it is time for you to grow up and figure it out on your own.
You may also be sitting there saying, "Wait a minute — I have been a Christian a long time. I have been around church for ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years. How come I have never heard this before? I have had guys preaching who have PhDs and all of these different degrees, and they have been to seminary and studied and studied, and they have never taught me this — forget teaching the other side, they have never even taught me this." Let me share a dirty little secret with you, something I have learned from behind the scenes.
Having a card that says "pastor" gets me into a lot of interesting meetings. When I talk to those guys and they know who we are, they will frequently come up to me and say something like this: "I believe all that stuff too. I just don't teach it." And when I ask why, the answer is, "It is so divisive. If I taught that, everybody would leave and the church would fall apart." My heart goes out to them. I understand why they are afraid.
The first time I taught this — when I taught on particular redemption — one-third of the church left and never came back. I do not think it was entirely the teaching itself. I think it was the way I taught it. I believe I taught it arrogantly and obnoxiously, and I will try not to do that this time.
Response to the Teaching
There is a man on our staff now who used to work at another church, and he said they loved it whenever I taught this series, because their church would get all these new people coming over. He said literally, when I started this, the phone calls would come on Monday. I also received an email this week that said, "Tom, thanks for the heads-up. We always appreciate your teaching the doctrines of grace. We are beginning to suspect that whenever the church gets too big, you teach this subject to thin out the crowd." That is not my desire. My desire is to help you understand what is absolutely critical — not just to East Valley Bible Church, but to your understanding of the gospel.
Teaching Schedule
Let me give you the teaching schedule for the next seven or eight weeks. We are going to take the next two weeks and look at total depravity. You will then see a gap — the seventh is Anniversary Sunday, and I hope you are here that day. It is a time of great celebration, a time when we talk about our past, our present, and a whole lot about our future. There are also a couple of key meetings to be praying for. One of them is this Wednesday, but hopefully by the seventh I can give you a full picture of where we are in the building project. It may be out of your sight and mind, but it has not been out of ours, and I think I will be able to give you some meaningful updates.
Then on the fourteenth we will cover election, on the twenty-first limited atonement, and we will do a summary on December fifth. That will bring us right into the Christmas season.
A Final Encouragement
Are you ready to get in and work our way through this? I feel like we are ready, and it has been a while. It is time to make certain we have this in place. Hang in there — do not give up. You have questions, and they are legitimate questions, and legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers. My request is that you hang in here through these weeks, because most likely the question you have is going to get answered before we are done. It is difficult to answer all of your questions individually, so stay with the process and let it unfold in order.
A Core Part of Who We Are
This is great stuff. This is important stuff, and I wouldn't put you through this if I didn't think it was absolutely important. This is about East Valley Bible Church — this is a core of who we are. Not because Calvin teaches it, or Luther teaches it, or anybody else, but because the Bible teaches it. We really are in a culture that has lost it.
Pray for Pastors Who Will Not Teach This
Be praying. Pray for us, and pray for these other pastors. There are pastors all over this city who say they believe this, but they will not teach it. Pray that God opens their hearts and they see that it is truly a great opportunity to teach this truth.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this night and this place and this opportunity to come together here. God, I pray especially tonight for those who are struggling with this — those who are looking at it and saying, "I don't know." God, remind them they need seven weeks of this. We need to work our way through this. We cannot just walk away from this teaching. We are talking about the gospel itself.
God, we pray that You would help us realize that we indeed are display cases for Your grace and Your mercy. God, we pray that You would be magnified in all that we do and say, so that very next Sunday when we come together for communion and worship, there is a whole new depth to that — because we are again reminded of the truths of who You are and who we are. Some are brought to this understanding for the very first time.
So for those who are confused or hurting, God, give us patience and kindness and graciousness toward them. Give them a sense of playing by these ground rules — that Scripture is the final authority, that they will progress logically, even willing to set aside those backgrounds if they are in the way. That is our prayer. We ask it of You tonight in Jesus' name, amen.