Introduction & Overview
Tom Shrader begins a series on God's plan for salvation by defining Calvinism and contrasting it with Arminianism. He explains that Calvinism teaches God is completely sovereign in salvation - choosing whom to save based on His grace alone, not on human decision or foresight. This view magnifies God while humbling humanity, showing that salvation is entirely God's work from beginning to end.
“What's at stake here is something more than just a battle of words. What's at stake here is the gospel itself.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (EVBC) (2002)
Recorded: May 19, 2002
Duration: 40 min
Themes: salvation, grace, sovereignty, humility, gospel, choice, predestination, doctrine, new believer, questioning salvation, pastor, bible study leader, struggling with doctrine, seminary student, young adult, seeking assurance
Scripture: 2 Thessalonians 2:13, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 10:11, John 6:37, John 10:27-28
Theological Themes: calvinism, arminianism, soteriology, divine sovereignty, election, predestination, total depravity, irresistible grace
Full Transcript
Today begins what could well be the most important series that we will ever teach at East Valley Bible Church. I know that sounds like hyperbole. Many people talk about the most important series until the next one is more important. I don't think that I could teach a series that's more important than this series.
The title of it is God's Plan for Salvation. I guess that's what makes it so important—we're going to be talking about your salvation. We're really talking about the gospel. What is the gospel? How were you saved? What did God do to save you? What was your involvement? How is God's plan for salvation worked out in your life individually, in our life corporately?
Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism
We've subtitled it Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism. Now I know that the very phrase "Calvinism" can be explosive. There are some of you for whom it's a brand new term, so you can't even have a reaction to it. That's fine. For others of you, it just generates all sorts of emotion, many of them critical or negative, and most of those uninformed.
I was at Forest Home doing a summer camp five or six years ago. It was the third night, and it was the night out by the pool. They had the big band playing, and it was really a neat time. I was just walking around, going from table to table, and greeting people. There are people who were there at the conference.
I came to a table that had three or four couples from the same church. We were just talking, very nice conversation, and they said, "Tell us about your church." I said, "It's a nice church. It's a good church." They said, "Well, we've talked to people who are here from your church, and they say it's a young church and a growing church. We've talked to the staff here at Forest Home, and they likewise have shared those same things about the church. What kind of a denomination are you?"
I said, "Well, we're not part of a denomination. We're a Bible Church." They said, "Okay, what is it that you teach?" I said, "Well, this isn't too complicated. We teach the Bible." They said, "What do you believe?" I thought, you know what? I'm never going to see these people again, so I did something that I would probably not typically do. I said, "Well, we're a Calvinistic church."
The Reaction to Calvinism
It got as quiet there as it is here right now. They looked at me, and one guy said, "What's a Calvinist?" The other guy said, "Well, those are those people that believe that God does everything. He chooses who's going to be saved. He sends people to hell. He predestines everything—God does everything."
The other guy said, "Well, is that what a Calvinist is?" And he said, "Yes." He said, "Is he a Calvinist?" And he said, "Well, I think so." Then he said, "He's not a Calvinist. Look at him." So apparently, there's some visible way you can tell by looking. The guy said, "He's not a Calvinist. You've heard him for three days. He's funny, he has fun, everything. He's not a Calvinist."
So I went and got a cup of coffee and never went back, and left him there stuck. But I made some notes, and when I came back, I did essentially this series that we're looking at now.
What motivates me this time is a little bit the same. I so often hear people say that their friends say they'd never come to East Valley Bible Church because it's a Calvinistic church. I have people who say all the time, "We'd never be at that church because you believe God elects those that'll be saved."
Addressing the Caricature
Whenever we deal with things like that, almost always, we're dealing with a caricature. The reason that you could have well been here for two or three years and never heard the term Calvinism is because I just simply don't use it. Not because we wouldn't embrace it, but because it's lost its meaning in the culture we're in. At the same time, I think it's important that we understand what this stuff really means.
So we're going to take the next six or seven weeks, and we're going to answer some questions, and raise some questions, and try to address what I think is a very, very important issue. This discussion is going to generate in you lots of questions and lots of reaction.
If you just got saved, or you don't have much of a church background, or you're not even a Christian but you don't have a church background, this won't be that hard for you. It's really hard for those of you that have been around church for 5, 10, 20 years, and for whom this is new stuff.
Why This Matters
I met a lady in the lobby after the last service, and she was with a friend. This friend is somebody who came to me three or four weeks ago and said, "The last time you taught this, it changed my life." She said, "This is my friend. I've invited her here. We were raised together. We went to church school together. We were in church all our lives. She's never heard any of this stuff either." I'm anxious to see what God's going to do.
So it could be that you've been around church a long time, and you've never heard this, or you've only heard it in those hushed tones—"Calvinism"—that kind of a discussion.
Questions for Today
Here are a couple of questions for today. Number one: What is Calvinism? Number two: Was their definition accurate? Was it just a caricature, those guys sitting around the pool? Why the reaction? Why do people react so strongly to this?
It is amazing to me the reaction that this generates, and the only reason it is is because I have a tendency to forget the first time I heard it. I was invited to a gentleman's house, and he had a guy come in and speak, and he spoke on "The Sovereignty of God," the book by A.W. Pink that in fact bears that name as its title. When we were all done, we were in the kitchen, and I said, "You know what? You are so full of it. This is so wrong. This is absolutely wrong."
What happened to me, though, was strange.
I went home, and as I started to read my Bible, what I discovered is it was all through that scripture, and I couldn't get away from it. I found myself saying, if I want to be intellectually honest, I have to say that this is true. I mean, you've got verses that are pretty simple. Here you go, 2 Thessalonians 2:13: "But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." It's pretty hard to dance around those things, and now you see them everywhere.
So quickly, I began to say, okay, they must be true, but it took me almost three years to totally be able to embrace, understand, and articulate these truths. Do they matter? I think they matter enormously. What's at stake here is something more than just a battle of words. What's at stake here is the gospel itself.
What you need to know is that the view that we as East Valley Bible Church embrace is indeed, sadly, a minority view today. That's why you get that reaction. That's why people respond. This may seem new to you. So I have great sympathy to you, those of you for whom this seems new, or for whom you struggle, or you have just a flinch away from this, or you want to cut and run. Certainly don't want to sit through seven weeks of this. I understand exactly how you feel, but I'm about to tell you what you're dealing with here is one of the most important things. I've underestimated it. The most important issue that you can deal with.
What's Really at Stake
One author writes this: "Ours is a culture in which the tendency is to exalt what is human and diminish what is divine. Even in evangelical circles, we find increasingly attractive a view of God in which He is one of us, as it were, partners in the unfolding drama of life." See, that's what's at stake. You have two views.
Here's the handles that we're going to put on them. You have a Calvinistic view that says, God is sovereign. God is God. That's what the very definition of the word means, that God from beginning to end is a God who's in control. He's supreme. We exist by His grace and His mercy, and we're under His lordship.
We have another view. Here's the handle. We'll explain it to you in a second. An Arminian view. And the view is simply this: Yes, indeed, God is good, and God does some great things, but He can't and doesn't accomplish what He wants to accomplish without the assistance of man.
So here's what's at stake. One view magnifies God. The other view magnifies man. One view minifies man. The other view minifies God. That's what's at stake. It's a big deal.
Defining Calvinism
Here's the definition. I didn't want to get us all bogged down. I didn't go to some big honkin' theological book. I went to the dictionary. The dictionary says this: Calvinism is the group of Christian doctrines of John Calvin and his followers, especially those doctrines of predestination, of salvation of the elect solely by God's grace.
I just want to make a point here, and we'll make it probably in all of these sessions. Yes, Calvinism itself, the doctrines that we identify as Calvinism, were embraced by Calvin and his followers. There's no question that you have John Knox and John Owen, and you have Whitefield and Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards, more contemporary for us, an R.C. Sproul, a John MacArthur, a James Montgomery Boyce. You have no question these guys would embrace it.
Let me add another group, because one of the things I hear is, "Well, if Calvinism's true, if God's elected those that are going to be saved, then why would I ever share my faith? Why would I evangelize?" Here you go: William Carey, the father of modern missions, Calvinist. Dr. Livingston, I presume, Calvinist. See, the Calvinists were at the core of the movement of missions. The Calvinists have been mainstream all through the history of the church, really until just the last couple of hundred years.
The Historical Roots
The point I wanted to make is the doctrines that we identify as Calvinism have some origination with Calvin forward, but the teaching that is Calvinism goes all the way back to the time of Augustine to the Apostle Paul to Jesus Himself. Don't think, for example, that when we embrace Calvinism, we're embracing some truth that was uncovered in 1618. That's not the case. What we're doing is saying, this is what the Bible teaches, especially in the areas of predestination and of salvation of the elect.
Now, the word predestination always scares people. Here's what it means, simply: "Pre," beforehand, "destiny," the place that we're going, or our destination. When we talk about predestination, what we mean by predestination in its most elementary form, is that we as believers, our final destination is decided by God. If you're here today, and if you will be there when the roll is called up yonder, it's because of God, not because of you.
The Hard Question
Now see, here's where this starts to rub the wrong way. "Wait a minute! I made a decision! I chose to follow Him! I'm the one who believed in Him! I repented, didn't I?" Yes, you did. But it begs the question. Here's the question: Why? Why did you believe? Why did you repent? Why is it that somebody sat down with you and a friend, and they started to share the gospel, and you responded and the friend didn't? Are you a little bit smarter than they are? Do you just have the advantage of a good church background? Why? Why did you respond? Why are you headed to heaven?
The reason is because the creator God of the universe, before the foundations of the earth, chose you to be saved. That's why. Now that brings about the question, "Well wait a minute, if He chose me to be saved and intervened in my life to save me for heaven, did He then intervene in the life of the lost people and predestine them to hell?" Session four.
The idea here is salvation of the elect and solely by God's grace. It is so amazing to me. This is how far we've fallen. This isn't even as a church, this is just as a culture, where words don't mean anything anymore. You'll sit around with your friends...
And they'll say, "Well I believe that Jesus saved me. I believe I'm saved by grace." And then you start to define this: "Oh you're saved by grace. You mean God, He intervened and He gave you grace, you didn't deserve it, unmerited favor, He gave it to you and you didn't do anything?" "Oh no, I don't believe that. I believe God did that, but then I did something too."
That's not what we believe at East Valley Bible Church. Here's what we believe: God saves sinners. The Creator God of the universe saves lost people. If He doesn't intervene and He doesn't change our destination, we will continue to hell. But the Creator God of the universe has selected people, His people. He will intervene and their destination changes from hell to heaven. Their life here, which has no meaning and no purpose and no direction, now has meaning and purpose and direction. Our desire, our overarching desire in life now, is to live a life that brings honor and glory to God. We are Christians today based on His mercy, His grace, and His love for you individually, for us as His people.
The Stakes of This Discussion
This is a big deal. Charles Spurgeon, the prince of the preachers, says this: "I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified unless we preach what we nowadays call 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."
That's what's at stake here. This is a huge issue. This is not "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." This is not something that just has intellectual benefit, although there's an intellectual capacity to it. This is something that has enormous practical ramifications to your life. It's going to affect the way you evangelize. It's going to affect the way you live your life. It's going to put joy into your life because God gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And now when you worship, you worship in a whole different way.
We saw it last night. One of the songs that Tim and the guys sang last night is a song, "Without You." "Without you we can't do anything." And so then when they're done, I said, "Guys, I want you to come back when we're done with the message and do that again." And I'll bet you everybody's got a different view of that song when it's over. We listened to this message last night and we sang that song and you could see people say, "I got it. I see it. There's the difference." Because without Him, you cannot do anything.
A Quick History Lesson
Here's a quick history lesson. I love parents because they always come along and say, "My kid doesn't know history. Don't know what century the Civil War was taught. Don't know anything about World War I. They don't know anything about the Declaration of Independence. They don't care about history. Got to know history." And I'll say, "You know, you're right. Talk to me about the Synod of Dort." And they'll go, "I don't know anything about the Synod of Dort." That's because we're guilty of the same thing we accuse the kids of.
The New Dictionary of Theology gives us a little bit of the origin of the issue: "Considerable discussion had arisen in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century concerning the understanding of divine sovereignty." Let me stop. Do you see it? Do you see the issue here? The issue is the sovereignty of God. Who is God? Is God really sovereign, really independent of man? Is He the supreme overriding authority or not? Does He rule without any restrictions or not? That's the issue.
The Teaching of Jacob Arminius
The Synod centered on the teaching of Jacob Arminius, 1560 to 1609. He was a Dutch seminary professor. So when we use terms like Calvinism, it flows from Calvin's teaching, we are going to oppose that with the teaching of Jacob Arminius, and that's Arminianism.
Arminius taught and began to gather a following, really important. Here's the body of truth. Here's the confession of the church. Here's what the church has taught essentially for 1600 years. There's always been a little aberrant view. There's always been a minority report, but under Arminius, this begins to gather some steam. So much so that a year after his death in 1610, the Remonstrance document was drafted. This is the teaching that we would identify today as Arminianism.
Here's what it says, and it has five points. The five points of Calvinism were not something that Calvin came up with. It's something that the church came up with in the Synod of Dort to correct—this is a very explosive word here—the heresy of Arminianism.
The Five Points of Arminianism
Here's what Arminians believed. God's election is based on the foresight of man's faith. In other words, here's what they believe: God elects. Can't get away from it. God chooses. We got Him all the way through there, but here's how we get around it. Here's how He elects: He looks down the corridors of time. He sees those that will select Him, and He selects them. Have you heard that? Have you said that? Do you have friends that believe that?
Here's the problem, and it just starts to fall apart quickly. If God chooses them based on the fact that they were going to choose Him, then God's not sovereign or choosing at all. And that doesn't even get into the real problem, which is now you have natural man, fallen man, we'll use that term, fallen man, natural man—speaking of a man, woman, boy, girl, student who doesn't have the Holy Spirit living in them. Now you have natural man choosing Christ to begin with, which is impossible.
Here's the second thing: that the intent of Christ's death was the salvation of all human beings. In other words, here's what they believed: They said Christ died for everybody. Christ paid the price for sin of every person that ever lived. Here's what happens there: If indeed Christ did that, and most of us would agree, unless you're a universalist, that there are people in hell, now we have...
people in hell for whom Christ died. That makes sense.
Fallen man's incapable of any good without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. We would say yes to that, but they would say the Holy Spirit's working in everybody's life equally. No special favor to God's people. That saving grace may be resisted. I actually went to a church for years where the pastor said this: God's voted yes, Satan's voted no. Now you decide. In other words, God wants you to be saved, God sent His Son to die on the cross, God's done everything He can do, now it's up to you. Very popular view.
When the girls were smaller, they sang in a Sunday school play, and one of the songs was "The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He always knocks before He comes in." That's what the Arminians say. What we say is, no, He's a DEA agent, and He kicks that door down, and He comes in, and He rips your heart out, and He gives you a new heart. If He doesn't do that, He'll knock and knock and knock and knock, and you're dead, you can't hear Him. You can't get to the door.
The last thing is, they didn't really know. They thought that you could be regenerated and lose your salvation, but they really said, we need some more study on this. J.A. Packer, in one sentence, gives us this: Arminianism made man's salvation dependent ultimately on man himself. Saving faith was viewed throughout Arminianism as man's own work. See what happens? God certainly plays a role. God has some things He has to do, but this is all about man.
The Dominant View in Today's Church Culture
Now, here's what I want you to see. As you look at those five points, that's the dominant thought in the culture we're in today. Most Christians would believe that God elects based on looking down the corridor of time. Most Christians would say, oh, when Jesus died, He died for everybody. Most Christians would say the Holy Spirit's working in everybody's life, and He's unlocking this goodness in us. Most Christians would say that saving grace can be resisted, that ultimately I'll choose. Many would say I could lose my salvation.
All of that is centered around man. So important—third or fourth time already today. Do you see that in the history of the church, that's the aberrant view? That's the minority view. That's not what the great minds in the church have taught. Go to any respected church historian and ask them to give you the great minds, the great theologians in the history of the church. They didn't believe that.
The Synod of Dort
The church could not let that stay. So in 1618, the Synod of Dort, a group of church leaders from the Netherlands and other churches, came together. They had 154 meetings that took place over seven months. They came together, and here's what they wanted to do. Number one, they wanted to examine the five points of the remonstrance. Number two, they were going to compare it to Scripture. Not what Calvin said, not what Arminius said, not what Augustine said, but what Scripture said.
When they did that, they discovered that Arminianism, the dominant view in our church culture today, is incompatible with Scripture. They rejected it.
Recommended Resources
David Steele and Curtis Thomas—here's what we're going to do throughout this study. We will have resources available to you. Many of you are just 50 bucks away from being a Calvinist. If you just spend the money, you'll be there. We'll highlight books all through the study. Highlight these two today: "Chosen by God" by R.C. Sproul—you can handle this, trust me—and "The Five Points of Calvinism" by David Steele and Curtis Thomas. It's a great little resource book. Both of these are available out in the courtyard today.
Here's what Steele and Thomas say: "No doubt it may 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." Isn't that sad?
Salvation as God's Work from Beginning to End
"Salvation was viewed by the members of the Synod of Dort as a work of God's grace from beginning to end. In no sense did they believe that the sinner saved himself or contributed to his salvation." We played no role. God had to intervene. Why? "Because the ability of fallen man to believe the gospel is itself a gift from God bestowed upon those whom He has chosen to be objects of His unmerited favor. It was not man but God who determined which sinners would be shown mercy and saved. That in essence is what the members of the Synod of Dort understood the Bible to teach."
See what happens? God gets bigger, man gets smaller.
The Church's Response: The Five Points of Calvinism
That wasn't enough. They said, we've got to respond to this. We can't let this just sit out there. We've got to respond. Out of that comes the five points of Calvinism. See it again? The five points of Calvinism was a declaration of the mainstream church saying again, we're standing on the shoulders of Augustine and of Paul and most importantly of Jesus and the Scripture. That's where we're standing.
So consequently come the five points of Calvinism. Number one, fallen man, natural man, he cannot believe the gospel. Number two, God's choice of a sinner is the cause of his salvation. The reason that you are a sinner or a saint today, follower of Christ, is because God intervenes. Number three, Christ's death actually saved His people. When Jesus went to the cross, His intention was to save a specific group of people. Jesus did not waste one drop of His blood. There was not one drop shed that didn't accomplish its design and its purpose, which was to save His people from their sin.
The fourth point was that God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose. And lastly, see the Trinity, those chosen by God, redeemed by Christ, and given faith by the Spirit are actually saved forever. There's the Trinity at work. Before the foundations of the earth, God decided who He would save based on His own good pleasure. Christ died on the cross, shed His blood for that specific group of people, and at the appointed time the Holy Spirit will
God's Seamless Plan
We number them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, but only for purposes of discussion. This is a seamless garment. You'll find people that say, "I'm a three-point Calvinist, I'm a two-point Calvinist, I'm a 4.5 Calvinist." I think you either take them all or you don't take them at all. Now I know that there are many guys—I just read some Randy Alcorn stuff, and I love the stuff he writes, and he says, "I just don't buy one of those, I buy four of them." I think they all flow together. I think you take them all in a seamless garment.
I've got not enough time, but let me make a couple of points. I said at the beginning, this isn't about any human teacher. This is about what Christ taught. I just want to give you just a flavor for this. I want you to see how Christ's teaching manifests itself in the five points of Calvinism.
Christ's Teaching in the Five Points
Here's the first point. Number one, fallen man can't on his own believe the gospel. Jesus says no one can. This is so important. This is an absolute key because now we unlock the condition of man. What condition is man in? Is he dead in his sin and trespasses or not?
I will tell you that when you begin to deal with the condition of man, all of a sudden God has to intervene or no one would be saved. Because no man can save himself, even to the extent of merely believing. Man cannot. See, this speaks to ability. No one can. This is absolutely key. If you can find one verse—not ten, not five, not two—one verse that says natural man has the ability to understand and believe in the gospel, we'll recant from all of this. But you ought to find it.
Here's the second thing. God's choice of a sinner is the cause of salvation. Therefore, I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it's been granted to him. If I say the truth and the life, no one comes to Me except by the Father, who is going to believe that truth? Those that are granted insight into the truth.
Christ's death actually saved people. "I'm the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep." When Christ said, "It is finished," what He's saying is, "I've shed the blood that was necessary as a propitiation, the sacrifice to pay the price for the sin of the elect."
Number four, God's grace always accomplishes its saving purpose. "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me." There's none that the Father's chosen that will not come. And fifthly, they'll never leave. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand."
The Comfort of God's Promise
Do you see the comfort there? If you're a Christian today, you are as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there. Nothing, no one can break that union with God. That union was established by Him. Now the depth of that communion is based on my grace and my obedience to that as He works in my life, but the union is a gift. The union was established by Him.
God's Glory in Salvation
Whenever we have a proper discussion of salvation, it always centers on God. The primary goal of redemption is the manifestation of the glory of God. God's glory is manifested even in the punishment of the wicked, those that are sent to hell as punishment for their sins. God has glorified His justice is seen. His glory is demonstrated for us. We're display cases of the grace and the work of God.
One author writes this: "Even a brief summary of the doctrines of grace is sufficient to reveal what's at stake in the conflict between Calvinism and Arminianism. Ultimately, it's our view of God." That's what's at stake here. This is about God and who He is. This isn't about Calvin. This isn't about Arminius, although we'll use those names. It's not about Sproul or Augustine. This is about God and who He really is.
This will radically change your life. You know why? Because it radically changes your view of God. You will begin to see Him for who He really is. And maybe for the very first time, with the full depth of your being, you'll begin to worship Him. If you're walking around thinking, "Well, there was a mustard seed of faith, but I produced the mustard seed," then you've diminished the glory of God by at least a mustard seed, which is too much. It is in the teachings of Calvin that flow from the teachings of Scripture that God's glory is seen.
Ground Rules for Discussion
Here's some ground rules for our discussion. Number one, the Bible's our final authority. As I said, we'll quote these guys, but ultimately it's the Scripture that settles any issue.
Secondly, we are going to proceed logically. My experience in this is that we want to run ahead to a conclusion rather than systematically work our way through this discussion. You can't do that. You can't come in and take calculus until you've had algebra. You can't just run in this discussion and say, "Well, I want to talk about this," and then we'll go over here, and then we'll go over here. I've been down this enough to know we're on a rabbit trail, this thing, to death. We'll be all over the place. We're going to deal with this stuff, but we're going to do it logically.
Addressing Common Questions
We will answer the what-ifs. Why evangelize? That's the question all the time. Why evangelize? If God's decided who He's going to save, why evangelize? What do you do with John 3:16, "For God so loved the world"? "Whoever believes will be saved." What do you do with that? Doesn't the Scripture say that God desires that none should perish? What does that mean? Doesn't the Scripture say that Jesus is the propitiation for not only our sin, but the sin of the world? What are you going to do with that?
We'll deal with all those questions and all those theoretical what-ifs. "Well, what does this mean over here, and what about my grandma over here, and what about my aunt here, and why would He do this?" And we get a lot of those. "That's not fair! Why doesn't He save my aunt?"
Setting Aside Your Background
Here's the last thing. I'm going to ask you to set aside your background. I mentioned it earlier. For many of you, this is going to run counter to all that you've been taught. You come from families with a godly heritage, and a godly mom, and a godly dad, and you love them, and you should, and they're heroes, and they ought to be. But when it came to this teaching, this isn't what they taught you.
Well, you better set that aside, because as great as mom and dad are, we still have to submit what they teach to the Scripture. For many of you, it's a break with the church that you've been in for years and what they've taught.
Why Haven't You Heard This Before?
Here's a question I get all the time. It's fun to watch this process, because as eyes are opened and the scales fall off, I start to hear things like, why didn't I hear this before? Why wasn't I taught this before? I've been in church all my life, and I never heard this. And they're suspicious, and they ought to be.
They come from churches where you got guys with seminary degrees, and guys, they got their name, and they got more degrees than a thermometer behind them, and now they come in here, and here's a broken down old commercial real estate broker. I got a PhD. I got a broker. Who should I believe? Well, I understand. I mean, you're not going to hurt my feelings. I got that figured out.
Why did you never hear it? Let me give you a couple of reasons. Number one, a lot of churches are afraid that you don't have the capacity to deal with this. Years ago, there were a group of us in a small group that went to meet with one of the local pastors about this issue, and we started to ask questions, and it was the most... Here's what he essentially did. You know, boys, you're dealing, Tommy, you're dealing with some really hard stuff, very patronizing. The greatest minds in the world have argued over this. You're never gonna figure it out.
Or you just simply don't have the persistence to get through this, because it is a process. Or some guys just don't think it's important. Here's what I hear, and I've heard pastors say it, and I know it's their line. I believe it, but I'd never teach it because it's divisive. I cannot fathom standing before God saying, I knew it was true, but it was divisive.
You Can Get This
I categorically reject all of those. Number one, you can get this. You know how I know you can get it? I got it. And if I got it, anybody can get it. That's the beauty of this church. The bar is so low at the top, but if he got it, I know I can get it.
The second thing is, I know some of y'all cut and run on this, but the majority of you're going to hang in there. And if you hang in there, at the end of this, you're going to be so miserable even if you reject it that you'll begin to embrace it. Number three, it is absolutely critically important. I can't say it to you enough. Your whole view of God changes. He gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It's what John the Baptist said. He must increase. I must decrease.
The Secret to Our Growth
And I don't think you'll leave. We've reached a point now, just size-wise, East Valley Bible Church, where we start to show up on the radar screen of people who are trying to figure out churches and growing churches. And they want to come in, and they're looking for the recipe. What's the recipe? And so they look at certain things, and they try to replicate them. They look at what Gary does, and they try to replicate it. But you can't. They look at small groups, and they look at all this.
Well, when they talk to me, they'll say, what do you think is the key? Why is the church growing? And I'll say, because we believe the doctrines of grace. We cling to the teachings of John Calvin. That's why we're growing. They look at me like I got eight eyes. Are you kidding? People will run. If they run, does it look to you like people are running away from this?
I'll tell you what I think. I think if you're a Christian, when you finally hear this, this is like a drink of cool water on a hundred and ten degree day. All of a sudden, all the tumblers click, and it starts to come together. And what you instinctively sensed is that God was there, and He did elect, and He did choose, and you could never put it together, and nobody talked about it, so you thought it was no big deal.
This Is Hugely Important
It's a gigantic deal. The church fathers died for this stuff. They stood up and said, listen, if you're going to teach that He looks down the corridor of time and chooses those that will choose Him, you're a heretic. That's what they said. That's strong stuff, isn't it?
This is hugely important to you as an individual and to us as a body. One of the reasons we're doing this right now is dirt's going to fly in the next week or so, and when that conference center is built, one of the possibilities is we'll do two services simultaneously on Sunday morning, going back and forth. It would mean, God willing, that just automatically the body can absorb another thousand people. I don't want to bring a thousand new people in here and set them on a foundation that isn't rock-solid. I want you to understand this stuff, and I want you to understand how serious we are about this.
Teaching Schedule
Here's the teaching schedule for the next couple of weeks. Next week, Memorial Day, total depravity is so important. I don't want to do it on a holiday. We'll talk about what salvation really looks like next week. Total depravity will be on June 2nd and June 9th. Then we're gone to summer camp.
We'll be back June 23rd for election. On June 29th and 30th, we'll do limited atonement. Then we're gone the first week in July. I have no idea who I'm speaking to. I just know this. They called and said, you'll be at Cannon Beach, and I said, oh wow, I'll be there. It's going to be 120. So I'm going to be on the beach that week. We'll be back on the 13th and 14th for Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints. Then we'll summarize.
week to summarize it because I want to make sure we tie it together. As a demonstration of how serious we are about this, on those first five nights, we'll have a subsequent meeting on Monday night that'll be an open forum. Bring your believing friends, and we'll have a dialogue. We're not going to argue, and we aren't going to debate, but we're going to answer questions. I'll moderate it, and there'll be some ground rules, and we'll work our way through that.
But I want you to know, because there's no way. You've got to have questions blurring around in your mind right now. You need an outlet for them. Here's not the outlet. Please don't email me. And I'm saying this simply. When we're done with this, that's fine. But not now. We've got too much to do before you're ready for email.
I'll tell you another reason I prefer Monday night to email. Here's the problem with this email. We don't get to shepherd you. We don't get to see your eyes. We don't get to talk about this. So join us on those Monday nights.
The Importance of This Study
It's heavy stuff. It's so important. If you've got friends at other churches and friends with whom you have disagreed over the years with this, I'm saying to you, bring them. Be patient. Don't run away from it.
If you're starting to run and even now you're saying, I don't know if I want to go through it. I don't know if it's worth it. It absolutely is worth it. The glory of God and the sovereignty of God are what are at stake. It's huge.
Let's pray. Father, help us see this truth. God, thank you for these men and women who so faithfully come. I pray what they hear are your words and your truth. God, thank you that you've opened our eyes to salvation. God, open our eyes to this truth. We pray to you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Let me add one more thing. Beginning now, after every service, we'll have a couple of elders up front. If you have anything you want to talk to about, they'll be here and they're here to talk to you. So have a great week. We'll see you next week.