Abide Above

We are going to smoke today. There's a lot of different material and if we get bogged down somewhere, I'm okay with that too. The first one, seeking to minister on the theory of accommodation is an effective way to reach souls for Christ. What would the theory of accommodation be? Now, run that by me. If you read the book, what would the theory of accommodation be? What does the word accommodation mean?

Sunday school will take care of your kids. The author says, this is a costly procedure. To utilize the world's methods, music, dress, speech, and attitudes, the Christian is inevitably pulled down to the world's level instead of drawing the worldly to a spiritual level. The price paid is infinitely too high for what little is gained.

Any of you who have ever been rubbed up against, especially parachurch organizations, will find that this is what they do. They accommodate. They try to go into the world looking like the world. They do it under the heading of being all things to all people that they might gain some, but what they really do is accommodate the world. Why is that such a bad idea? It doesn't help to be transformed to the image of Christ.

You do all the worldly things and embrace them. It opens yourself up to almost anything. It's also the raw message. That's right. What is the message of the gospel? Come to Christ. And by coming to Christ you're going to leave all of that. So, accommodation is different than being all things to all people that you might win some.

As an example, if you've ever read Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, you find that at a point he began to dress like a Chinese person in the turn of the century, the 1890s. He even had a long ponytail and wore Chinese clothes. Why? He wasn't accommodating. But he was being all things to all people that he might win some. There wasn't any doubt that his gospel message was clear and the message wasn't compromised by what he was wearing. Although it could be. In today's society, some of the stuff that's fashionable today... What was the deal with Barnabas? He got circumcised, called a loudmouth. And Timothy too?

Yeah. So the answer to that one is false. The purpose of identification study group is to enable hearts to progress in the opposite direction, not down but up. What do you think? True, according to the author. Miles has coined the phrase, keep looking down for your life is hid with Christ and God. Once you understand your position in Christ and you abide above, then you look down. But in terms of ministry, it is the process, I think, of focusing people on the Lord Jesus, where He is. A true identification study... In the true identification study, the Spirit will turn the heart and life...

Gee, my computer forgot to put the rest of it in there. Somebody else read it. What do you think? Absolutely true. The cross is the issue. It's the central issue. And it is the one thing that the Holy Spirit will continue to focus a believer on. the cross of Christ, because there is the freedom from all that the world would have you do and be. It turns the heart away from the world and away from self to Christ. But the cross is the tool that is implemented vis-à-vis the Holy Spirit.

When the Lord Jesus came in the world, was he ever of it? No, she never was. Healing is included in the atonement. It is not God's will for Christians to be sick, but that all should be in perfect health. We laugh at that, but trust me, there are millions of Christians that believe that point. I'm not saying they can't heal, though.

Well, they get it from Isaiah 53, verse 4. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgression, and was bruised for our iniquity, and chastisement for our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's the verse they hang their hat on, which says that we should never be sick. If that's true, we should never die.

I think he had a really good response. Finally we must consider God's will and the subject of him and God's primary purpose for his children is the forming of the image of Christ in them. Whether he heals or not will depend on which will contribute to the accomplishment of that purpose. That's exactly the point. That's the point. And what's interesting is it shows you how important it is to know the principles. and to know what the primary purpose of God is. And if he says he's going to work all things together for good, then sickness and illness is going to be part of that. It has to be. Having said that, God does heal people. He does. He healed my sister, I know he did. But it wasn't hats and horns and smoke and mirrors. He just did it. He just did it. He cured her of melanoma cancer, stage 4. And you know what?

She didn't appreciate it. It's really true. She didn't, to this day. Five, it takes a lifetime to learn and really believe in our hearts that there is sometimes something better than release from pain and sorrow, and that is a deep likeness to the Lord Jesus which means fruitfulness. That's what you're saying. Absolutely true.

And I think as the Lord gets you going on that track, the value of what he's doing becomes really important to you. And so, even though it's taking a long time, even though it's difficult, you know what he's doing. I think it really helps us as believers to know what God's up to. Sixth, spiritual growth is a result of emotional experiences and signs and wonders. No? No? Why not? What's the basic problem with the ministry of experience and signs and wonders? What is the root problem with that being the focus of your ministry? And that's focusing on the Lord by themselves. Yeah. And it's focusing on the soul rather than the spirit. You see that? Most charismatics think that soulish experiences are spiritual. They just redefine them as being spiritual when they're not.

If you read the two chapters in the Tongues drama, he does a really good job of lining out how it begins, what the forces are at work, all the way down through the steps until you get the baptism of the Spirit and how it works. It's really good. You've never seen how the steps are. It's very subtle. The charismatic movement produces nothing but unscriptural unreality centered in bondage to a nerve-fostered experience. without reality and growth in the risen Lord Jesus, its followers rely upon a constant round of meetings and renewed experiences to keep going, to say nothing of renewed salvation." Absolutely. That's a good definition of what they're about. Okay.

Let's talk about, for a minute after that question, what are the five points of Arminianism? Let's go to there. Anybody know what The basic doctrinal or theological, put it this way, the two basic theologies that prevail today in American Christianity is Arminianism and Calvinism. And we as believers should know the basic tenets of both and be able to recognize, because most denominations are one or the other. You understand that? So, on the five basic points of Armenianism, the first one is what?

You have free will and you have human or human ability. Is there a problem with that? How many in this room think you have free will? I have two people that went like this. What is free will? A right to choose or the ability to choose? So, does a non-believer have free will? No. Really? Everybody has free will. So, free in what sense? to do what you please. Does a non-believer have the freedom to effectuate his own salvation? Well, then he isn't free. How can he be free? I mean, one of the tenets of free will is that you can carry out your decisions.

I mean, I love it. You can do anything you want, but not your salvation. But you can't fly. Go jump off the building. I want to see you The Armenian viewpoint would say that each person possesses a free will and it's up to them to effectuate their own salvation because their will is free. So, you know, I'm one of those people that don't think you have free will. I don't think you have. When the fall happened, when Adam fell and all men fell in, why do you think your will came through that unscathed? You mean to tell me if you have free will that you can control your sin nature?

Ephesians 2.1, it says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sin which you formerly walked according to this world. And then it continues, and even when you were dead, it seems if you were dead, it's separated, and you have nothing. If you're dead, you're dead. You're dead, you're dead. It's separated from God. And Corinthians says, The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot know them. He's in abject darkness. He does not know, so he can't choose. So how can he be free?

So you choose not to believe, right? Yeah. Well, actually, if you look at... On Thursday night, we're studying John's Gospel, and it's really interesting about when the Lord Jesus is encouraging people to believe. Their unbelief is not just polite disagreement. It's aggressive. They do choose not to believe.

You know, free will to me is one of those things that... What is free will? If you had to define it and you could really have it, what would it be? The ability day by day to make decisions about what happens in your life, about how you react in those situations.

That's how I define it. Okay, that's good. Everybody agree with that? You think that sounds good? How about this definition? The ability to always do God's will is perfect freedom for me. Oh, I call that freedom. Absolutely. To be able to do God's will, moment by moment, is absolute freedom.

Because His will for you is freedom. What you discover when you grow spiritually is that, Romans 7 says, Paul says, I have the will to do it, but I don't have the power to carry it out. So willing isn't the answer, right? So what you find is that the cross effectuated your separation from the man who couldn't into the life of Christ, whose will is absolutely free, but always chooses God's way.

Always. Because that's where freedom is. See that? Only the sin nature would view that as not being free. The sin nature views the cross as something it would not choose. but the cross is the secret to our freedom, because it frees us from sin. And you can't free yourself from sin.

Sorry. Go for it. Call me, let me know how it's going. You can't do it. So Calvin, that's the unconditional election. You have no choice then. Let's compare them. This is a good time to do it. The five points of Calvinism, number one, is the total inability or the total depravity of man. What Calvinism states is that man is so depraved that the Holy Spirit must regenerate him before he can exercise faith in the gospel.

The Armenian is totally the other end of the spectrum. He has free will and he can pick and choose any time he wants. He can pick salvation, And later on, he can decide against it. So what's the problem with the Calvinistic viewpoint of total depravity if there is one?

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but this is why I assert that we do have free will. We have a loving God who wants that no one should perish, and yet there are people who are going to perish. That's an inconsistency, and so that, to me, puts belief on us. That may be the only act of free will we've got in our lives, but if that act is on God, then he's screwing it up, and that's inconsistent. Is faith an act of the will? Because think about, what is faith? It's seeing the facts. The facts have been presented to you, which means they came to you from outside you, right?

And then God invites you to do the one thing that isn't of work, And you can't get any credit for it. Because what are you doing? You're taking another person's word that what they have done for you will accrue benefit to you. You don't contribute anything to the work at all. Nothing.

But isn't that the will? Is it the will? That's what I'm asking. I don't know. I agree exactly. The one thing you're required to do is believe. And that's a choice. And that means your will. I mean, you choose left or right. And that's the only thing you do. And it's not a work. I agree, it's not a work. But it's individual, you know, it's to each individual, you know, the global, you know, and that. But it's, you make the decision.

I think the Holy Spirit... But you don't make the decision as to whether the facts are true or not. Because the facts are true, whether you decide they are or not. Do you believe? Let me turn the question around. So the facts are presented to all of us. Do you agree with that? I'm not sure. Is it presented to only some? I think it's presented to only some. I don't think everybody gets a gospel message.

I think the will is born through belief. I'm sorry? That the will to do God's will is born after salvation? Well, it's part of the new life. The new life has its own characteristics, which will is one of them. Now, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that there are plenty of people who have come on this planet who've never heard of Christ, and they die. All human beings, though, are responsible before God to recognize who God is and to be thankful. Romans chapter 1. Because God is revealed in His creation and in their conscience.

Okay? So what's their decision? He says, you need to honor me as God and you need to be thankful. If you don't do that, you stay where you are. If you do do it, what do you get? Nothing. Although I'm convinced that if you go that far, that God will get the gospel to you, and I think he will. There's too much evidence that way, too, that people that are isolated, that some wake up one morning and say, you know what? The tree in the middle of the village isn't God. You know? God, I know you exist, I honor you as God, and I'm thankful that you're there. That person will get the gospel to them at some point, I think. I'm pretty sure about that. Paul is very explicit in that the miracles of God are around us. Every human can see them. And that everyone with even a grain of sense knows that these have to be miracles. There's nothing that just came into being. And so he's very explicit about that. And he said these people have turned their way, turned their... They have no excuse. That's right. They won't accept those things even though they're visible. Right.

And if you read a Romans one, once they exercise their will, or don't believe, and won't honor God as God, The next five verses, man goes from looking like he's got a chance to total depravity, I mean quickly, the slide is quick, but that man has the ability to exercise faith no matter what stage he's in, right? So every man can exhibit faith. We do it every day, all the time.

The worst of us have faith in all kinds of things are not visible that we believe are so. I mean, if there's anybody that exercises tremendous faith, it's evolutionists. To believe all that crap takes a lot of faith. More so than it does to believe the gospel.

Now, the Calvinists say that man is so depraved that he cannot exercise faith in the gospel unless he's been regenerated first. What do you think? I don't think that's true, because I don't think they can prove it scripturally, doctrinally, because the Word of God comes to a person, and there is no evidence that God regenerates a person. There's plenty of evidence that His Spirit acts upon a person, but that's not regeneration.

Miles used to say this, that the natural man is the responsible man before God. He's the one that lost his first estate, Eden. And he has a responsibility before God because of his sin. When a non-believer exercises faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus, he fulfills his last obligation in Adam.

And what happens to him? He dies. He's gone, positionally. So here's this new man in Christ. Does he have free will? Absolutely. Absolutely he does. He has the mind of Christ. He has life. Now he may not function out of who he is and function out of Adam and be in darkness and all of that, but positionally in the way in which God views him, he's complete in Christ.

There's a sense in which we think that free will is me being the center of the universe and me being the decider. What we find out is that being in the bondage to sin, the work of the cross and our inclusion in it has freed us from that bondage and allowed us to freely do what we've always wanted to do in Christ, and that's abide in Him. So, you alright with the Calvinistic... Yeah, I'm not either. I mean, man can believe. He has the ability to exercise faith. He doesn't need to be regenerated in order to believe. OK? Want to go back to Arminianism? OK, yeah, let's go back to free will.

On the summary of that, it says, salvation is accomplished through the combined efforts of God, who takes the initiative, and man, who must respond. Man's response being the determining factor. That's the Armenian viewpoint. God has provided salvation for everyone, but his provision becomes effective only for those who, of their own free will, choose to cooperate with him and accept his offer of grace. At the crucial point, man's will plays a decisive role, thus man, not God, determines who will be the recipients of his gift of salvation.

What do you think? Sounds good, doesn't it? I think it's overstating things, at least a bit, in that, for me personally, my decision was not to accept God's grace. something that just happened, but I did believe. All the other stuff came afterwards and was certainly from God. Everything up to that point was the work of God too. Think so?

He's absolute. I definitely agree with that. Okay. Now, if you... Go ahead. I'm going to revisit a previous question, but just change it a little bit. Okay, cool. Do you believe that there are those who get the facts and then don't believe? Yes. Why? Now, why do you believe, but why don't they? Oh, why don't they? Because they're hard as hard. Could be that. I think that's probably the best answer. Because their deeds were evil and they loved the darkness more than they loved the light. And the word love there is agape. And I think that's right.

I know that, and I was sharing this with the guys on Tuesday, we got in this salvation discussion, that when I was presented with salvation for four hours, two guys beating me up, I knew all the facts, I knew they were true, and I was scared to death. because I somehow knew that if I believed, if I went for it, I was going to die. Whatever I knew myself to be for 35 years was going to be over. And that scared me big time. I was really afraid. Because you loved yourself. Oh, man.

But I also recognized that myself wasn't that reliable, but I knew Him. And I also knew that belief in Christ meant that I was going to have to walk away from Him. Or, as I found out later, how he was going to get crucified. And he wasn't going for that at all. I was very fearful.

I really was. Even though I knew the facts clearly. And I believed that they were true. But I also knew that knowing the facts were true isn't enough. You needed to pray, right? I needed to exercise my free will. I was in the evangelism explosion for several years, and going out and presenting the gospel explicitly, because I've done a lot of memorizing, and having these people just continue to say no. And you bring up other verses that are so explicit, insofar as what the end will be if they don't. And they just sit there and they sort of smile at you. Well, they don't believe what you're saying. No, I mean so I just, I said well, of course we'd leave there and we would pray for him to claim the power of God's word.

Sure. Because it's sharper and more powerful than any two edged sword. Right. Body and soul, spirit, joints and marrow. And so you leave there and you feel sort of empty. Yeah. Getting back to Craig's, why some choose and why don't, it's still up to the individual, the free will of the individual to make that choice. I don't think you can say that the will is free. Because if it is free, then it can make a decision for life, assuming that it knows life. Then how do you reconcile this question of some do, some don't?

What's also interesting is that we're talking about this will, this will, and assuming that it's how it works with God. Every man is born with faith. Every man has the ability to believe things. That's right. We believe things all the time about our spouses, about our children, about the world around us. It's interesting, you look through history, where science has come and gone. and what people will believe.

So that's already there. So when you begin speaking about this will, this undefined will, you're assuming that it's something that we possess and where that faith has not been given previously. It's the will of the first Adam. Well, see, and that's the issue. The natural man, the Adamic man, has will, right? But we somehow think it hasn't been infected with sin. and that it somehow can be free from sin to make all these wonderful free choices. Nonsense. That's where death happens. The sin nature, the will is part of the soul and the soul is absolutely infested with sin.

It's a matter of birth. I think you're on it. A man can choose to believe. Is it his will? I don't really know the answer. I know that some things come to you and you just recognize them as being true, and okay, they're true. I'm having a hard time recognizing this has been one of those ones where, you know, what is it? Is it will or not? Those types of things.

Yes, I agree, the soul is totally infested. Nothing is evil, completely, contrary to God. But somehow, you have to make that choice. Man believes in his heart. To believe. And where that comes out, infested, you know, soulish man, where does that come from? Is it will? What is it?

And I agree, everybody has faith. We've been through that several times on Tuesday. Yeah, they do. That's right. Jump in a plane that's going to fly. You know, those are all we all have faith. But somehow, you know, instead of a Calvinistic view, you're selected. Yeah. Yeah. You're regenerated and you're on the boat. Yeah. Oh, the Armenians have a selection process, too. Yeah. But it's not unconditional. Right. You're selected. Yeah. You know. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Basically.

Sure. believing what is God revealing to that man at that time and whether he agrees with God or doesn't. I think it's very interesting how we have this conversation right now. what you started out with is that if a man recognizes there is a God and will honor that, he will get the, you know, God will get it to him. I think we actually have less involvement than we really want. And I think it takes a while to grow into the knowledge that, huh, I have much less involvement in my salvation than At least I discover that over and over again.

Wow, I was set up. I mean, acutely set up, but it was almost like I fell into it. It was just this point of no, yes. But you don't find that out until after you're saved. At the point of salvation, from your perspective, you really only have one choice. When it gets down to that, right? Exactly. If you're one of the called according to God's purpose, when it comes right down to the time, there's only one choice. There isn't a choice to reject, there's only a choice to go. Because he's wooed you to the point where you wouldn't reject him then. Yeah. You know, you use the word, the count of the called. So only those that are called? Only those that have been selected, pre-selected? I think so. But it isn't selection.

Because I think that the Gospel is clear, or the Word of God is clear, that God chosen from the foundations of eternity. But the point is this... We went over that in a presentation. I finally cleared it up for me with that. It's after you're in Christ, He's known you. From our perspective. He's known you from eternity. Once you're in Christ. It's always after you're in Christ. It's not before. So that helped reconcile that decision point. Everything is after you're in Christ. Then you have all the same things as Christ.

He's known you since eternity. And that really cleared it up. I'm convinced that even in time-space that He knew me before I was saved. He knew me in Christ. The thing that explained it for me was that I understand that I went from a finite man to an eternal man. which meant we look at eternity from here forward, but it's also from here back. That's how come we could be crucified with Christ.

That's right. And the Armenians say that foreknowledge is based on God looking down through eternity and seeing that you would choose, and you would choose, and you would choose, and so I'm going to pick you three. And you, and you, and you, and you. And he foreknew, he predestined. But when you look at that verse...

But predestination does not have to do with salvation. Predestination has to do with conformity to the image of Christ. Every believer is predestined to a whole bunch of things. Non-believers aren't predestined to anything. Do you understand that? came to my mind, if God had only chosen some to be saved, why would Jesus have died for the sin of the world? That's a great question because, number one, there's this presupposition that we deserve it. No man deserves salvation at all. When Christ comes to the world, to die for the sins of the world.

Who did He do it for? Me? He did it for God. He did it for God. Right? He had to satisfy God. You didn't matter. Because the only contribution you had to the cross was you put Him there. You had nothing to do with why He did it. He did it because He and the Father worked out the deal.

And the Father God himself must be satisfied about the sins of the world because he's holy. He cannot go through eternity not being satisfied. He has to be propitiated. So Christ propitiated him about every sin of all time by every person. Paid for. And God is propitiated. Okay? Now God, after he's been propitiated, is free to act graciously towards men.

And he's free to pick who he wants. And it has nothing to do with how cool or not cool you are. And it has nothing to do with him knowing whether you would choose him or not. It has nothing to do with that. The fact that he even offered salvation to one human being is grace over the top.

Just one. Because what we deserve is condemnation for all eternity because of our sins. There's no question about that. Right? Nobody deserves it. So, I mean, we got free will and we deserve and we did this and... No, we didn't. No, we didn't. God did everything.

And then when he's finished, he comes to men and says, Now, if you'll buy what I did, I'll save you on the basis of what my son did. No other basis. So the value is in the work of the son, not your faith. So, I think we have to get out of our minds the idea that our faith contributes any value to the work of Christ. It doesn't. And that same premise holds true in spiritual growth. For God to not only pay for the sins of the world, but to recreate us through being included in the cross of Christ is just information that... We had nothing to do with it. That's important.

To where a person understands Him and just naturally agrees with God. We were talking, I was talking to somebody yesterday or the day before, and there's kind of an issue going about, okay, God exhibits His grace and tells me, but I've got to believe. And if I don't believe, you know... In my discussion with a guy yesterday, I said, you know, What's interesting is you grow as a believer in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus. Faith is an automatic.

If God reveals something to you, you don't have to munch it down to believe it. It's your father says it to you and you buy it. You have no qualms that when God says something is so, fine. You go for it. What are you doing? Exercising faith in the information you know or in the person you know. It's mostly the person, because the information fits. So you don't have to stop and say, well, I'm going to have to make some decisions about these facts. No, you don't. You buy them, because it's God who's revealing them to you. And the reverse is true, too. I mean, we talk about faith possibly being an act of the will, but if you don't believe it, you can't force yourself to believe it. No, you can't. I mean, that's not going to work.

And one of the things that we'll talk about in this The person at work of the Holy Spirit will be his work exactly on that point. You know, it's like God comes to a believer and shows him identification. He says, I'm sitting here, I didn't die, are you kidding me? It never happened. And I don't believe that for a minute. The Holy Spirit says, oh, okay. No, no. No, no. No. We're going to stay here until you buy it, boy. That's what's going to happen. We're going to stay right here. until this issue is resolved. It may take the rest of your life. We're getting short on time. This class could go on for days.

Arminianism believes in man's free will decides about salvation, that conditional election has to do with God seeing who would choose him so he chose them, The universal redemption, or what is known as a general atonement, Christ's redeeming work made it possible for everyone to be saved, but it did not actually secure the salvation of anyone. The Holy Spirit can be effectually resisted. That's what you're talking about. But Arminianism is talking about salvation, not growth.

The Spirit calls inwardly all those who are called outwardly by the gospel invitation. He does all that he can to bring every sinner to salvation, but inasmuch as man is free, he can successfully resist the Spirit's call. Our meaning is in point five, and this is the killer, you can fall from grace. Those who believe and are truly saved can lose their salvation by failing to keep up their faith.

Now, and he makes the point that all Armenians have not agreed on this point, and some have held that believers are eternally secure. Now, Calvinism, and I would say that Calvinism is probably the predominant theology, more so than Armenianism is today. We've already talked about one, the total depravity of man, an unconditional election that God-determined election was not determined by or conditioned upon any virtues, quality, or acts foreseen in man. Those whom God sovereignly elected He brings through the power of the Spirit to a willing acceptance of Christ. Thus God's choice of the sinner, not the sinner's choice of Christ, is the ultimate cause of salvation. You buy that? I do. I think that's it.

Limited atonement, you know what limited atonement is? It means that Christ died only for the sins of those that are saved. The one, the guy across the street who isn't saved, his sins weren't atoned for. Well, that would be fine if man was the focus of the work of Christ, but he's not.

You see that? So the atonement, the work of Christ is for all the sins of everybody. Four, the efficacious call of the Spirit or what is known as irresistible grace. What do you think? That you can't resist God's grace. Yes, you can. You can. And five, the perseverance of the saints. All who are chosen of God, redeemed by Christ, and here's the kicker, and given faith by the Spirit. That's where they miss it. Faith is not a gift. Every man has it.

Our eternally saved are kept in faith by the power of the Almighty God and thus preserved to the end. The one doctrine that convinces me of eternal security is the identification truth. If I was united to Christ by the baptism of the Spirit, which meant that I would be crucified with him, buried and resurrected, and now seated with him. The only way I could lose my salvation is if Christ reversed the process. And that isn't going to happen. Do you see that? Because I've been recreated in Christ... I'll put it this way.

Romans 5.12 talks about that all men sinned in Christ, right? So every man is condemned in sin and trespass because in Adam they sinned. So God's dilemma, if he has dilemmas, was to get those that he was going to save out of Adam and into Christ. If he can get them into Christ, then they're eternally secure, because they're not associated with a condemned man anymore, right? So once this transaction is effectuated, you being included in the death, burial and resurrection, you're a brand new person. Not a new person, a new creature.

And your whole identity is different. Do you see that? And you have been separated from all that man that was unpleasing to God. So even though you can act out of that man, it never affects your position. Ever. Do you see that? To me, that's the ultimate security. Because you can't sin yourself out of Christ. Because you can't sin in Christ. Do you see that? Is that alright? Make sense? Because when you're sinning as a Christian, you're not doing it in Christ, you're doing it in your old man. It's the old man that's sinning. Is that right?

The summary of the Calvinistic viewpoint. Salvation is accomplished by the almighty power of the triune God. The Father chose the people, the Son died for them, the Holy Spirit makes Christ's death effective, by bringing the elect to faith and repentance, thereby causing them to willingly obey the gospel. The entire process, election, redemption, regeneration, is the work of God and is by grace alone. Thus God, not man, determines who will be the recipient of the gift of salvation. Now, one last point. Other than the limited atonement and just being regenerated before you believe, The Calvinistic viewpoint is pretty close to what salvation really is. The Armenian viewpoint is so loose and so scary, you don't want to go there.

Because, boy, if you've learned anything, anything that depends on you isn't going to hold up in the slightest wind. I'm sorry we had to go so fast through all this stuff. We could spend a lot more time, but the classes switch over next week. We can revisit this stuff, and I'm sure we will, as we study the person and work of the Spirit. Let's close.

Our dear Father, how we thank you. How we thank you for the security we have in your dear Son, and above that, the fact that you as a person have decided to reveal yourself to us in your Son. We look forward to growing more and more in the knowledge of Him and the grace of Him, so that we might rest in Him. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.