Total Inability - Part 2
Tom Shrader continues his series on the doctrines of grace by establishing that fallen man is not only spiritually dead but utterly incapable of comprehending or believing spiritual truth, drawing primarily from 1 Corinthians 2:14 and John 6:44. He dismantles the notion of libertarian free will, arguing instead that the will is always bound to one's nature, so that natural man will inevitably reject the gospel apart from the sovereign, compelling work of the Father. The lesson closes by laying the groundwork for the next session on election, framing God's choosing as the only logical answer to the question of how a spiritually dead person can ever be born again.
“Natural man has the permission to come to Christ but only has the ability to sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (2004)
Recorded: 2004 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 47 min
Themes: free will, salvation, grace, spiritual death, unbelief, election, gospel, human nature, questioning calvinism, new to reformed theology, longtime churchgoer, skeptic of election, searching for answers about salvation, adult sunday school student, new believer, someone doubting gods sovereignty
Scripture: Romans 5:12, Romans 3:10-12, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 3:16, John 6:44, Psalm 119:18, Revelation 3:15-20, James 2:6
Theological Themes: total depravity, total inability, doctrines of grace, calvinism, libertarian free will, regeneration, sovereign election, biblical authority
Full Transcript
Setting the Ground Rules
We have said that we want to lay some ground rules out. These are good ground rules for any discussion, but especially this one. Number one, the Bible is our final authority. We will quote Martin Luther, Stephen Thomas, and James Boyce, but ultimately it is Scripture that is our final authority. We will talk about Calvinism, but we talk about Calvinism only as those doctrines flow not from Calvin, Luther, Edwards, or Augustine, but as they flow from Scripture.
Here is the second thing: we are going to proceed logically. We are going to proceed almost painstakingly slow. We will be repetitive, especially in these first two or three weeks, because we are laying the foundation for everything. One lesson builds on another, builds on another. We made a deal the first week — I have a burden to communicate clearly, and you have a burden to listen and to be responsible.
The notes are on the website. By Wednesday or Thursday, download them and bring them in so you do not have to do a great deal of writing. You are filling in blanks, and as God prompts you or you hear something, you just make a note. Everything that is on the screen is on the website. If you miss a lesson, you need to go back and listen to it — not to sell you tapes, but simply go to the website and listen.
Somebody asked me a question last week, and I said, "Were you here the first week?" No. "Did you listen to it on the web?" No. Then we are not going to talk about it until you go back and work through all of this. Legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, and many of those questions will get answered if you are simply patient as we work our way through the material. I am going to give you a great example of that here tonight, so just be patient. When we are all done, we will have a forum where you can come and ask questions and dialogue — not debate, just talk through these things and answer questions.
Setting Aside the Past
I have never been around a topic that is more prone to rabbit trails than this one. We could go down a thousand different rabbit trails, so you need to be patient in this process. It may also require you to set aside your past, and by that I mean you could easily say, "I have been around church all my life and I have never heard this."
I have watched an evolution that takes place with people. They will start by saying, "I have been around church all my life and I have never heard this — this cannot be right." I will say, "Hold it up against Scripture." They begin that process, hold it up against Scripture, and they start to say, "This begins to make sense. My eyes are opening." Then all of a sudden they will say, "I get it." And then I watch an interesting phenomenon — I watch a lot of people get angry at that point. They ask, "How come I have been around church and no one ever told me this?" and they want to load their guns and knock people out with this new truth.
I hope that I am modeling for you how to deal with this topic. There is a gentleness to it. You have to be direct — I understand that — but there is a gentleness. Not every believer is going to understand this right away. It took me three years to work through this, and now that I am here I find myself saying, "I do not know how you cannot see that." But there is a patience and a love that should be exhibited in your life as you share these things.
Understanding the Term "Calvinism"
The title of this series is "God's Plan for Salvation," with the subtitle "Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism." I shared with you that I wrestled with whether to even use the term Calvinism. I do not typically use it — not because I am ashamed of it, but because most people do not understand what it means. We have reached a point in the culture here in the Valley of the Sun where pretty much everybody knows where we stand on these issues. We are identified as the church that clings to the doctrines of grace, and I love that.
Oftentimes, when people want to criticize or somehow slander us, they will say, "Well, that is that Calvinistic church" — as if it is the worst thing they can think to say about us. So rather than run from it, let us simply understand what we mean by it. We teach these things as they flow from Scripture.
A Brief History: Arminius and the Synod of Dort
Just to keep the history clear in your mind — Jacob Arminius arrived on the scene in the early 1600s and began to teach. His followers are called Arminians, and from that comes Arminianism. This was a teaching that the church responded to. The Synod of Dort was called in 1618, and on May 9th of 1619 the five points of Calvinism were issued as a response to what the church declared to be the false teaching of Jacob Arminius.
The church sat down and responded to each of those five points, putting forward in a positive way what the Scripture teaches: that man is unable to respond, that man is depraved; that man is elect and God chooses based on His own good pleasure; that when Christ died, He died for His people; that grace extended to His people is irresistible; and that the saints will persevere to the end. Thus we get the acronym TULIP.
Tonight's Objective: Total Inability
We are dealing with the T. Now, if you are very quiet tonight, you will hear doors slamming shut. I have a very direct objective tonight, and that is to begin to eliminate any other possibility but the conclusion I am taking you to. I am telling you that up front, and I am taking you there not based on my own reasoning, but on the basis of Scripture.
The Condition of Fallen Man
My philosophy or my theories would have never produced this thought process. That is why I had to come to it somewhat reluctantly after a lot of study, and then I could not deny it, because the Scripture so clearly teaches this.
Here is what we talked about last week. The view one takes concerning salvation — and that is what we are talking about here, what does it mean to be saved — will be determined to a large extent by the view one takes concerning sin and its effect on human nature. In other words, what is our natural condition when we come into this world? What is the state of our spiritual well-being?
There are many different ideas about that. Some suggest that we are a blank slate, tabula rasa, that we come in absolutely neutral, and then life begins to carve on us and make us what we are. A second philosophy, probably the dominant philosophy in the world we live in here in the United States, is that man is basically good — that man in and of himself is good, capable of good, and even desires good, but struggles to be sure.
You can see how this philosophy exhibits itself when someone behaves in a way we might call abnormal. What we rush to do is analyze that behavior and try to figure out why they responded that way. The end result is that you produce a culture — and this is a really important point — where people are always a victim and never a villain. There is always some reason, there is always an excuse.
There is yet another view that says man is bad but can do some good things. And then there is the biblical view.
Fallen Man Is Dead
This is what we attempted to establish last week. Fallen man is dead. I add quickly that he is alive to sin — making decisions all the time — but he has no desire for anything that the Bible calls good. Fallen man is dead.
Romans chapter 5, verse 12: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all have sinned." Death has intruded into all of our lives. When Adam sinned, he plunged all of mankind into sin.
So we come into this world not as a blank slate, not neutral, not basically good, but as sinners. We validate that conclusion as soon as we get a little control of our muscles, some eye-hand coordination, and the ability to speak — we manifest sin quickly. We sin because we are sinners. That is who we are.
We are dead in our sins and trespasses, separated from God. That is why, in a couple of months, you will be able to sing that God and sinners are reconciled — because man and God are separated. We need to be reconciled. Man is naturally at war with God. Something needs to take place in our lives.
We are dead. We love the God we create in our own minds and in our own image. We love religion, especially as we define it. Religion is man's endless pursuit to reach a holy God, but biblical Christianity is the story of a holy God reaching down to a sinful man.
Total Inability Defined
When we talk about total inability, here is what we are talking about. As a result of Adam's sin, all mankind is spiritually dead — that is what we established last week. The second part of it is this: consequently, man is unable to either comprehend or believe spiritual truths. Man is blind and deaf to the message of salvation.
I apologize for the repetitiveness, but let us make certain we understand this. Man is spiritually dead. God looks at mankind and offers this assessment in Romans chapter 3: "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They all turned aside. Together they have become unprofitable," or useless.
And then here is His summary statement. God looks at natural man — every person who has ever lived, every person alive right now in their natural state — and He says this: "There is none who does good, not even one." That is His summary statement. That is God's assessment of us.
God Looks at the Heart
I understand that in some instances this may rub against our experience. You may have a neighbor who is going away for the summer for a couple of weeks and calls to ask if you will watch the house. You agree, you get the mower, and you cut the grass. That has to be a good work, right? We see all sorts of actions and we call them good.
But here is the distinction. We are looking at the action. God is looking at the heart of the actor, and He says there is no one who is good. That is an absolute truth. That is the condition of man. That is not open to interpretation — that is what the Scripture says.
An Unwavering Young Believer
All those other philosophies, we put those aside. I do not know if you saw the special CNN aired — an hour-long program on evangelicals. They went to Spartanburg, South Carolina and interviewed a family there. There was a girl, I would guess about twelve years old, a redhead with great hair, a cute little girl. She became something of the focal point of the segment.
The interviewer was stunned. This girl was unwavering. She said the Bible is the Word of God, so we follow it and obey it, and what she wants most is what that book says, because that is what God says. Of course, then came the payoff question — the question designed to discredit her. They asked her what happens to those people who do not believe in —
The Condition of Natural Man
The Bible teaches about man that there is no one good, no not one. That is why you may have the experience of sharing your faith with a friend and they say something like, "I'm glad that you found something that works for you." It is not that it merely works for us, though it does. It is that it is the truth. When you are talking about fallen man, he is dead. He is not righteous. He does not understand spiritual things. He is seeking some false god, but he is not seeking the one true God. No one does good.
Natural man is spiritually dead. What does a dead man need? He needs life. That is why Jesus said, "Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again." You are dead. You must be born again.
That raises a series of questions, and this is where we left off last week. How can a dead man be born again? That is really the overarching question for the entire series. Can he do this on his own power? Can natural man do anything that is spiritually profitable? Can fallen man — people separated from Christ in their natural condition — come to Christ? Can they repent? Can they receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior?
Here is the sentence from last week, with the focus now on the second part: as a result of Adam's sin, all mankind is spiritually dead, unable to either comprehend or believe spiritual truths. That is what we are going to focus on today — the condition of man as it relates to spiritual truths and his ability to understand, comprehend, or believe them.
What Scripture Says About Natural Man
So here is the question: can fallen man do anything that is spiritually profitable? Scripture does not stammer here, nor is it vague. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14: "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him." Earlier in the same book, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul says the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. It does not make sense to them. Why? Because they cannot receive things that are of the Spirit of God. They cannot know them. They are spiritually dead and unable to respond.
There is no spiritual decoder in them. The Spirit of God is not in them. You are talking about something they are never going to get. It is like the time this summer when we were on a plane with a pilot who was a friend. I went up to look at the gauges and noticed a screen in the middle showing all the other planes within range of us. There was one straight ahead, and I watched as the two blips moved closer together. I said, "I do not want to bother you, but have you seen that screen? Because it does not look good." He said nothing was going to happen. I said it looked like the other plane was coming straight at us.
He explained that when you fly east, you fly at certain altitudes, and when you head west, you fly at different altitudes. That is the grid — that is how it is designed so planes do not collide. And sure enough, those two blips came together on the screen, and a shadow passed right over the cockpit. That plane was exactly in our path, but there was never any chance of a collision because we were on parallel lines.
When you are talking to a natural man about spiritual things, it is exactly like that. You may get close. You may seem to be in proximity. It may look like it is going to connect. But you might as well be talking to the piano, because they are never going to get it. They cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They cannot possibly know them.
Study and Talent Are Not Enough
Martin Luther writes: "The Bible cannot be understood simply by study or talent." I know a man whose father has written four, five, or six theology books. I asked him a while ago how his father was doing, and he said, "We pray all the time that he will be converted." That is exactly what Luther's sentence means. You can study Scripture. You can parse the verbs. You can be all around it. But you are never going to get it by study or talent alone. You must count only on the influence of the Holy Spirit.
Luther says man is like a pillar of salt, like Lot's wife — like a log or a stone, like a lifeless statue. He is never going to get it on his own. That is why the psalmist prays in Psalm 119, verse 18: "Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things out of Your law." This is absolutely fundamental, and we need to get a firm hold of it, because we are going to build on it for the rest of today and for the next four or five lessons.
Three Questions
So here are three questions to work through. First: can a natural man understand spiritual things? No, absolutely not. 1 Corinthians 2:14 makes that plain. You are spiritually dead. You cannot receive Him. Second: is the gospel a spiritual thing? Therefore, third: is it possible —
Can Natural Man Come to Christ?
Can a natural man understand the gospel? Absolutely not. There is no way. You can preach and preach and preach, but if the Spirit of God is not in them, they will never get it. Here is another question: does natural man have the ability to come to Christ? Again, the Bible is explicit. Jesus teaches, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."
We are talking here about capacity and ability — not permission. When I was in third grade, in Mrs. Gadian's class, I remember the day I raised my hand and said, "Can I sharpen my pencil?" She said, "I don't know. I don't know if you have the dexterity to take that little stick, put it in that hole, and turn that crank. You may try — there's a sharpener there — but whether you can or not, I don't know." Some of you learned it a different way. "Can I go to the bathroom?" "I don't know. Down the hall and to the left, give it your best shot. You may." Do you see the difference? There is a big distinction between ability and permission.
Ability Versus Permission in Scripture
Let me show you this distinction from two different passages of Scripture. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but will have everlasting life." It is a great verse — a perfect verse for a football game. What does it tell us? God loved the world, Jesus came to the world, and if I believe in Him, I will not perish. That verse has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about, and yet I hear it all the time: "What about John 3:16?"
It is a great verse, but all it says is, whoever believes will be saved. That is a big statement, and based on it we go and proclaim this truth — we shout this truth. If you are tomorrow at Starbucks, or at IHOP, or at California Pizza Kitchen, or at work, talking to somebody about Christ, you can say to them with certainty: whoever believes will be saved. But that does not address what we are talking about, does it? We are not talking about permission; we are talking about ability. He is free to come — but whether you have the ability or not is another matter entirely.
Ability is addressed in John 6:44, where Jesus says, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." So about natural man: does he have a desire for spiritual things? Absolutely not. Something has to happen to him. Natural man cannot simply on his own come to Christ. He will not repent. He cannot generate faith.
The Key Word: "Unless"
Look closely at that verse. There is a key word: *unless*. "No one can come to Me unless." It speaks of a necessary condition — something that needs to happen before something else can happen. If I say to you, "You can't get into the show unless you have a ticket," I am saying you will not gain admission without one. You have to have the ticket, or you are not getting in.
What Jesus is saying is that no one can come to Him unless something happens. That should grab our attention. No one will be saved. No one will come in repentance and faith. No one will embrace the gospel unless something happens first. What needs to happen? The Father must draw him.
Now, I was raised in the evangelical church to believe that God is drawing everybody. The word we often use is *wooing* — as if there are seven billion people in the world and God is equally wooing all of us: "Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling — here I am, come over here, please." But the word translated *draw* means to compel. It is much more than wooing.
The Meaning of "Draw"
Let me show you two other places this same word is used in the New Testament. James 2:6 says, "But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppose you and personally drag you into court?" And in Acts, Paul and Silas were seized and dragged to the marketplace. That is the same word. God compels us to believe. He drives us to this. He intervenes, He comes to you, and you are born again.
Handling Revelation 3:20 in Context
I mentioned earlier that questions would come up and that patience would bring answers. I received an email this week from someone whose friend had sent them Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him and he with Me." The person who wrote to me said: "I can see how someone could misinterpret this passage to mean we have a choice to open the door. I understand Scripture tells us we are spiritually dead and I agree. I know that apart from God we can do nothing. It is not our choice. We are blessed through God's grace and not because of anything we have done." That is an excellent paragraph.
His question was: how would you explain to someone the true context of this passage? He also asked whether it is our job as believers to seek answers for ourselves — and yes, that is exactly why you have a Bible, why you should study, and why we teach. You should seek answers for yourself. His final sentence was this: "My biggest struggle is talking with someone about predestination and trying to explain why God chooses some and not others." I have the same struggle. I do not know why God chooses some and not others. But his specific question was about Revelation 3:20, so let me show you how to handle it.
Turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 3. The man who wrote that letter nailed it when he mentioned context. If I am dealing with real estate, it is location, location, location. When I am understanding Scripture, it is context, context, context. Jesus is speaking in Revelation 3 —
The Church at Laodicea
This is a continuation of what started in chapter 2. Jesus is speaking and addressing these churches: the church at Ephesus, the church at Smyrna, the church at Pergamos, the church at Thyatira, the church at Sardis, the church at Philadelphia, and now the church at Laodicea. He says in Revelation 3:15, "I know your deeds, you are not hot or cold, I wish you were." Consequently, they are lukewarm, and He says they make Him want to throw up. That is exactly what He is saying here.
He said, "Because you say, I am rich and have become wealthy and need nothing" — because they have become self-prideful, self-reliant, and self-indulgent — "you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." The solution He offers is to buy from Him gold that is refined. He is providing the counterpart to what He saw in these other areas, speaking of the major industrial products sold and traded in Laodicea. He is saying: you need gold from Me, you need clothes from Me, you need an eye salve from Me.
Laodicea was known for a magnificent eye salve that was used around the world at that time for the healing of eyes. Jesus says: as you think you are rich but are really poor — poor spiritually — you become rich by coming to Me. He offers to clothe them with righteousness and to give them an eye salve that will allow them to truly see.
Behold, I Stand at the Door
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with me." That verse has nothing to do with its common interpretation of God somehow standing at the door of each person's heart and knocking. Rather, He is standing at the door of the church. They have church going on. In our context, they have Bibles open, pulpits, crosses, choirs, robes, people, communion — but there is no Christ in the church.
Paul warns that this will happen. He said that in the last days people will be lovers of self and lovers of money. They will love the idea of godliness, but they will deny its power. They will deny Christ. So this verse has nothing to do with being at a crusade and hearing someone say, "The buses will wait — Jesus is standing at the door and knocking, and if you open the door He will come in." It is speaking to the church. He is chastising that church.
I have at home a picture that someone gave me years ago as a thank-you for coming to speak. It is a picture of a figure I presume is Jesus, standing at a door and knocking, and there is no handle on the door. It is meant to depict Revelation 3:20 — Jesus standing at the heart of each person, saying, "Let me in, let me in," and it being up to you to respond.
But if we were to have an accurate biblical picture of this, we would need two panels. In the first we would see Jesus knocking. In the second we would see a corpse on the other side. He can knock and knock and shout and knock, but man will never respond because he is spiritually dead. The Spirit has to take hold of his heart and change it for him to be able to see this truth.
Two Critical Questions
This brings us to two important questions. Can natural man do anything that is spiritually profitable? No. Does natural man have the ability to come to Christ? No. Two important truths.
I was in a bookstore on Friday. Susan and I were out and she asked what I wanted to do. I have two places I really love to eat, so I suggested one of them. She wanted to go to the mall instead. I said if we are going to the mall, I am going to the bookstore, and she agreed. I told her to find me when she was done shopping. So I was in there looking through books, and there was a new picture book on John Kennedy. I do not know how many such books can be published, but there was another one. I was looking through the old pictures — I have seen them all — but then I came across a quote and thought, "I could use that."
I went to a woman working there and told her I did not want to buy the book, but asked if she had a piece of paper so I could write the quote down to use on Sunday. She said yes. Here is the quote: "Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." — JFK, John F. Kennedy.
Is it true that our problems are man-made? Yes — we created them. We sinned. But can sin be solved by man? No. That kind of statement is powerful in a rousing campaign speech. We got ourselves into this, we can get ourselves out of it. You can imagine Kennedy saying it with full conviction: "Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they are solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." But I have a problem for you — one you caused — that you cannot solve. Sin.
Religion vs. Christianity
This runs contrary to everything, because here is what happens: religion loves that idea. I sinned, I will fix it. I sinned, I will solve it. But Christianity says no — you sinned, and you cannot solve it, because you are dead. Natural man cannot grasp it. Natural man cannot understand it.
That raises a question. It feels a little like Fiddler on the Roof — on the other hand, on the other hand. One night I was leaving the six o'clock service, and it was dark out, just like now. There was a young lady standing out front — I would guess around fourteen — standing there in the dark, and I don't
Free Will and What We Actually Mean by It
When we typically think of free will, I think we mean something like this: the ability to make choices without any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. There is no such thing as free will if that is what you mean. You are not going to make choices without any prior influence.
Consider why you came tonight at six o'clock. Because that is when it starts. Nobody shows up at 2:30 in the morning. The time was set, and you arrived. And why did you pick that seat? Because the other seats were already taken, or because you love to sit there, or because sitting on one side has a thinning effect. Everything has some reason to it. So when we talk about free will as the ability to make choices randomly, almost like a computer, it simply does not exist.
You will always do what you want to do. That is different from free will. You will make choices that you desire.
The Will in Bondage
So do you have a free will? The answer is no. Martin Luther said this: "Free will without God's grace is not free at all. It is a permanent prisoner, a bond slave of evil. It cannot turn itself into good." Luther wrote a classic work called *Bondage of the Will*, and it is a terrific book. The book is worth the price of the introduction alone, written by J. I. Packer.
What Packer says, what Luther says, and what Scripture says is that my will is in bondage to my nature. Jonathan Edwards put it this way: the will always chooses according to its strongest inclinations at the moment. You will always do what you want to do the most.
If I am walking down the street and a man comes up, sticks a gun to my head, and says, "Give me your money or I'll kill you," I will at that moment do what I want most. I want to live, so I will give him the money. You will always do what you want most. But my will is in bondage to who I am, and as a sinful man, my will is in bondage to my sin. I have free choice, but I do not have free will.
The Vulture Illustration
My favorite illustration of this is the vulture. Suppose I go to the sound booth, get a vulture that has not eaten in a week, place a head of lettuce on one side and a steak on the other, and let the vulture go. Is the vulture going to the lettuce or the steak? You already know the answer.
But how do you know that? You do not know this particular vulture. So we try it again — not once or twice, but fifty times. Fifty times out of fifty, the vulture goes to the steak. Maybe that is just the nature of Arizona vultures. So we get vultures from every state in the Union and run the same exercise. The vulture from Vermont goes to the steak. The vulture from Iowa goes to the steak. The vulture from California — maybe the lettuce, but generally the steak. The steak every single time.
Maybe it is just American vultures. So we get vultures from around the world, every vulture alive on the planet, and run through this exercise. Every one of them goes to the steak. Now here is what I want you to see: they had permission to go to the lettuce. They had free choice. They did not have free will. They were in bondage to their nature. They had the permission to go to the lettuce, but they only had the ability to go to the steak.
Natural man has the permission to come to Christ, but only has the ability to sin. I can present the gospel to him again and again and again. But unless something happens to take this person who is spiritually dead and unable to comprehend this truth — unless something happens to him — he will reject the gospel time after time after time.
The Groundwork Is Laid: Now We Talk About Election
We are now at the point you have been waiting for since we started this series. You have wanted to talk about election. Now we are there. The groundwork is laid.
The Condition of Natural Man
Natural man is spiritually dead. He is unable to comprehend or believe any spiritual truth, and he has no desire for it at all. Like the vulture that goes to the meat, natural man will reject the gospel every time.
Questions That Arise
This raises an overarching question: how can a dead man change and be born again? Does this change require some outside intervention? It does — something has to happen to this man. The answer, of course, is God working in his life. But that raises a further question: is God working in everyone's life equally? And the moment we say God chooses some for salvation, people immediately say that is not fair. Whether that is a legitimate question and a legitimate criticism is something we will address.
Coming Schedule
Next week is a special week — Anniversary Sunday. Every year that Sunday is a time to be reminded of some of the fundamentals of the church and what is taught, not just in general, but specifically at East Valley Bible Church. It is a truly important Sunday.
There are two particular things to address that week. First, something discussed at a recent elders meeting that needs to be unpacked for the congregation. Second, a building update: the new master plan has been completed, and the staff's reaction when it was introduced to them was one of absolute excitement. The plan will be given a quick flyover, and two dates will be scheduled for general meetings where the plan, its great opportunities, and some of its challenges can be discussed in more depth.
After Anniversary Sunday, the series will resume on the 14th with the topic of election, followed by Christ dying for His people on the 21st. On the 28th, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints will be combined into one session, and the series will be summarized on the 5th. An additional session may also be added to address the question of what genuine saving faith looks like — how a person who is genuinely converted behaves and responds. The goal throughout is not merely an academic exercise, but to genuinely answer the "so what" questions as we work through this material.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for the truth You share with us. We pray that You would take it and ingrain it in our hearts, and that as we understand it, it would not produce in us some sort of puffed-up ego or a desire to use this truth to overpower others. May it instead deepen our understanding of who we are and our love for You. As we leave this place and go out into this world, we take the truth that You have changed our lives and transformed how we live, and we carry it into this culture, into a dark place. We pray for Tuesday, for the election and the voting, that all here would be diligent and follow their conscience as they go to the polls. We pray for next week — a great time of celebration, a reminder of where we have been, and more importantly, of where we can go and what we can do through Your grace and through Your mercy. Thank You for that gift of eternal life that we find in Jesus. We pray to You in His name. Amen.