Question and Answer

If limited atonement is true, does that make phrases like, “Jesus died for your sins” and “Jesus died in your place” in evangelism wrong? Does that give a false foundation of faith?

Some Reformed people are much more vigilant over this language than I tend to be. I’m always asking, “What do you mean by it?” So I haven’t been picky on my language, though I’m more picky about mine now than I used to be, I suppose. If I heard someone say that to somebody, I wouldn’t say, “Don’t ever say that.” I would ask you, “What did you mean when you said that to that person?” And if you said, “I just meant that if they believe him, his death counts for them.” I’d say, “Okay, that’s true.”

But here’s what I would encourage you to think through with your language. In evangelism what do we offer to people? I think a good way to think is we offer them Christ and all that Christ did. Like a gift. If they reject the gift, they don’t have all that he accomplished and all that he did and is. But you give him as a totality. You say, “I’m offering you Christ. He’s willing to be yours. Embrace him, receive him, trust him, treasure him, all of him and all that he did.” I think we have a better gift to offer if we say, “He effectively canceled the sins of his people, removed the wrath of God from the sins of his people, provided righteousness for his imperfect people, and secured eternal life for his people. And if you would have him, then that and he is yours,” rather than saying to them, “You, in your sin and rebellion right there, are one for whom all that happened.” We don’t know that.

So when you say, “He died for you,” you have to sort of conceal that aspect. Because that’s not really what you’re saying is true about them. And what has happened in American evangelism is that we never get to it because people don’t believe it now. We’ve formed a kind of evangelism that only deals with the Arminian truth and leaves out the Calvinist truth. And I want both truths to be there. So I’m going to offer somebody Christ. Maybe you say, “Do you know Christ?” or whatever your lead line is on the street. Maybe you say, “What do you believe about Jesus Christ? Do you know that if you trust Jesus Christ all that he did for his people will be yours?” They might ask, “What did he do for his people?” You would say, “He canceled their sins and he removed God’s wrath against them. He provided for them eternal life. He gave them perfection in the presence of God. That’s what he did for his people. And he goes through the world offering himself to all people. And if you are in him by receiving him, that’s all yours.” You don’t say they have it before they have it. So find your way of applying that truth to people.

If Christ’s death propitiates the sins of the elect, then how can it be that the elect are under God’s wrath before they believe (according to Ephesians 2:3).

It’s a good question. Here’s my answer. We must distinguish between the penal sentence and the actual execution of that sentence. For the elect to be born children of wrath does not mean that the elect are enduring the actual wrath of God. It means they deserve it, yes we do, and that the sentence of God’s wrath still hung over them until the point when we trust Christ. We were heading to hell where God’s wrath would be executed on us. But it’s not executed yet. But that raises a second question: Why does this sentence of God’s wrath still hang over the elect in their pre-converted state if Christ has already propitiated God’s wrath?

There is a time gap between the judicial act that deals with God’s wrath, namely the cross, and the actual application of that accomplishment to the elect, namely at conversion. God’s wrath was propitiated legally when Christ died, but its application is delayed until conversion, which raises another question. Why? Since the propitiation was accomplished by Christ and is found only in Christ, God considered it fitting to delay the application of the propitiation, the actual removal of the sentence of wrath, I think I meant to say until right here. Until we actually united to Christ by faith. So since the removal, legally, of the sentence is accomplished by Christ and is only found in Christ, it is fitting that when we are united to Christ that sentence be lifted, so that it becomes clear that it was lifted in Christ and by Christ. In that way it becomes plain that the removal of the sentence of wrath was wholly owing to the work of Christ. Christ is more fully glorified.

I put at the bottom there, see my article, “My Glory I Will Not Give to Another,” from which I just took those quotes, just about verbatim. But you can’t get at this article for another year, because it’s in a collection that will be published on limited atonement. So watch for the book, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her. That’s a very complicated question. I just threw my answer out there.

Perseverance of the Saints

Let’s focus on perseverance. I love ending here. I love the doctrine of perseverance of the saints. The older I get the more I love it, right? In a sense you should love it a lot when you’re young because it’s the reason you can believe you’ll be a Christian in 60 years. But once you’ve lived those 60 years you look back and you say, “He’s amazing, he’s amazing. He kept me.”

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy . . . (Jude 24).

That text becomes unbelievably precious with every passing day of life. Because remember the question I asked you at the beginning, how did you get saved? I hope you got some answers to that. Here’s another one, I can’t remember if I asked it. Why do you think that you will be a believer tomorrow? Why do you think that you will wake up tomorrow morning believing in Jesus? How are you going to answer that question? If you say, “Well, I’ve got a free will and I’m going to use it that way,” you’re in trouble, man. You are in big trouble. If you think your next 60 years is going to be survived that way, I don’t have a lot of hope for you. Your free will is fickle. There is an answer to why we believe we will wake up believing tomorrow morning. And that’s what we’re going to talk about for the next hour or so. The Elder Affirmation of Faith says:

We believe that the sanctification, which comes by the Spirit through faith, is imperfect and incomplete in this life. Although slavery to sin is broken, and sinful desires are progressively206 weakened by the power of a superior satisfaction in the glory of Christ, yet there remain remnants of corruption in every heart that give rise to irreconcilable war, and call for vigilance in the lifelong fight of faith.

We believe that all who are justified will win this fight. They will persevere in faith and never surrender to the enemy of their souls. This perseverance is the promise of the New Covenant, obtained by the blood of Christ, and worked in us by God Himself, yet not so as to diminish, but only to empower and encourage, our vigilance; so that we may say in the end, I have fought the good fight, but it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

That’s my main text on perseverance. If you’re justified you will be glorified and nobody falls out, nobody falls away, nobody fails to get there. You’re going to win. It’s a battle all the way. What did Paul say at the very end of his life?

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing (2 Timothy 4:7–8).

A Fight to the End

I have friends right now who are on their death bed. It’s a fight to the end. Because however the devil gets you in China or America at the same time, he does. And what his words are is, “You didn’t live a good enough life. You’re going to die really bad. And when you go on the other side, you’re going to get surprised by the anger of God. Yes you are.” Boy, that will come at you big time. And you will fight or you will lose. I’m trying to help you fight. The Affirmation of Faith continues:

They will persevere in faith and never surrender to the enemy of their souls. This perseverance is the promise of the New Covenant, obtained by the blood of Christ, and worked in us by God Himself, yet not so as to diminish, but only to empower and encourage, our vigilance; so that we may say in the end, I have fought the good fight, but it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

So this perseverance is the promise of the New Covenant. It was obtained, I think, for God’s elect, in a unique way by the blood of Christ. It wasn’t obtained for everybody. Which is why, in the question earlier somebody asked, “Why does he let some people go so far?” Remember the parable of soils? The word comes, they spring up with joy, and then comes the persecution. They wither away, they fall away. What’s that? They come up and some of them get choked. They fall away. They didn’t persevere, because this wasn’t bought for them. This is bought for the elect. This is bought for you.

This perseverance is the promise of the New Covenant, obtained by the blood of Christ, and worked in us by God Himself, yet not so as to diminish, but only to empower and encourage, our vigilance; so that we may say in the end, I have fought the good fight, but it was not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

Woe to you if you construe anything I say in the next hour to imply that you are secure in such a way that no vigilance is needed. Did you hear that sentence? Woe to you if you construe anything I say in the next hour to imply that you are secure in such a way as to exclude the need for vigilance and war. You are a secure, justified saint. But not secure in such a way as to exclude war. You’re just guaranteed to win. So fight on!

Necessary Faith

I think I have six groups of texts to show this. We must persevere, this is a mandate. Then we’ll have the promise that we will. We must persevere in faith.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain (1 Corinthians 15:1–2).

If you don’t hold fast the word of God, you won’t be saved. And if you hear me saying you can lose your salvation, you’re hearing what I didn’t say. If you don’t believe to the end, but throw away the faith, Paul says you won’t be saved. We’ll come back to that.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister (Colossians 1:21–23).

So if you indeed continue in the faith firmly established you will make it.

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

All of these texts are saying you must continue, you must persevere in faith in order to be saved.

Mark 13:13 says:

The one who endures to the end will be saved.

Necessary Obedience

Now, here’s the second point: The obedience or holiness that comes from this faith. The first group of texts were to say you must persevere in faith to be saved. And now, we’re saying obedience or holiness — the change that comes into your life — is necessary for final salvation.

Hebrews 12:14 says:

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

So there is a sanctification without which you won’t see him. Holiness is necessary. And holiness is the fruit of the faith. So your salvation is not by works, it’s by faith. And the evidence of your faith is that you are being sanctified.

Romans 8:13 says:

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

So if you’re killing sin, fighting sin, you will live.

Galatians 5:19–21 says:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Isn’t that amazing? Paul says, “I warn you.” Who’s you? The Galatian church. I warn you. If you practice such things you won’t go to heaven. That’s the sermon I preached in Omaha, Nebraska when a man came up to me and said, “You know you’re going to have to watch out for your Arminianism here in this conference.” I said, “Excuse me? I’m a seven point Calvinist.” A lot of people think Calvinists can’t talk like this because it sounds like you can lose your salvation or like you’re not secure. Just don’t go there. That’s not what this is saying. What is it saying? Well, we’ll see what it’s saying. But just take it for what it is. Don’t make it mean more than it says. It says, “Those who act that way won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.” And he’s telling the church that. So we should preach that way as pastors.

It’s the same thing in 1 Corinthians 6:10, almost the same words. Ephesians 3:3–5 says:

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

He’s warning the church about these behaviors that keep you out of the kingdom. I don’t need to read all of these I don’t think. They’re all saying the same thing. Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31).

Kept by the Power of God

Now, here’s the good news. Those are all warnings that we must continue in faith and continue in holiness, and fight the fight against sin. The justified will be kept by God for final salvation. Yes, they will. I guess you’re tired of looking at this passage. Is it any wonder that I’m requiring my preaching guys to memorize Romans 8 this semester? All of it. And recite it out loud to all of us in the class, everyone of them. There’s a simple reason for that: It’s the greatest chapter in the Bible. I know I said Romans 3:20–26 was the greatest paragraph in the Bible. No contradiction. Romans 8 is the greatest chapter in the Bible, right?

If I have to go to a desert island with one chapter, I wouldn’t take it because I know it by heart already. I’d take another one. I’d take Romans 3. Because I don’t have that one memorized. So tired or not, here we are again, one more time, I think. Maybe there’s another one. But you’ve just got to feel the wonder of perseverance here:

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Romans 8:30).

And there is no one missing between justification and glorification. Let that sink in. If your heart bears witness to you right now along with the Holy Spirit that you are a justified child of God, the word that should be resounding gloriously in your mind is, “Those whom he justified are as good as glorified.” You will not be lost. Sweet. My wife’s Grandmother’s favorite text:

But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one (John 10:26–30).

What’s the point of text like that except, you’re safe! You are safe. The hand of God Almighty and the hand of the Son, “I and the Father are One.” There you are in the Son’s hand and the Father’s hand as one hand, safe. That’s really good news.

When my mother died, she was killed in a bus accident in Israel on December 16, 1974. It took us 10 days to get her home. My sister fainted when she saw her because they did such a lousy job on her body. My father was injured. He was on the plane that brought her home. I nursed him for a month to try to heal his back from the injury. We had the funeral the day after Christmas. This is totally unplanned, right? She was 56 years old. And driving to the cemetery to pick a plot. I’m driving my dad was very wounded sitting in the truth car here besides me.

I said, “Daddy, what should we put on the gravestone?” And he said, “I hadn’t thought about it.” He was married for 36 years, married a second time then for 25 years. My father had two good holy marriages. I said, “How about 1 Peter 1:5, “Kept by the power of God?” So this text means a lot to me.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3–5).

So there’s a double beauty in this text. We are going to get an inheritance. Are you sure we’re going to get an inheritance eternal in the heavens? Yes. Two reasons. One, it is reserved. I don’t like that translation. It’s kept, guarded. It’s reserved. So the inheritance is being guarded, kept, and reserved for you. It’s just waiting for you. And you are being kept. You’re being kept and the inheritance is being kept.

So here, a sovereign God is at work guarding you through faith. He’s not going to let you fall — “Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling away.” He’s holding onto you. And there, there’s an inheritance. And he’s keeping it, working on it, perfecting it, perfect for you. And one day, there will be closure. Nothing can stop it. So my mother was kept by the power of God for 56 years and then he took her, just when he chose — not when I would have chosen.

Called to Eternal Glory

First Peter 5:8–10 says:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

It’s going to happen, so walk into the suffering with all the brothers around the world. Embrace the suffering that he ordains for your life. Because know that after you’ve suffered a little while, he will perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. He has it planned, he’s going to do it for you. I mean, how many times do you have a battle in your life, a battle with discouragement, depression, anger, or somebody opposed to you, something happens that just knocks you off balance, and in that moment you feel like, “This could really go bad. I could lose my ability to believe. I could become so weak and so disoriented that I don’t even know if I’d be a believer anymore. I feel so at a loss.”

Now at that moment, what’s going to be your hope that you’re going to make it for 30 more years? I promise you, it is not your free will. That’s just ludicrous to even think that your will could be relied upon to get you through. It’s one thing: promises like this. The promises of God. He promised to keep me. He promised not to drop me, not to let me go. He promised to bring me through. He promised to perfect me, and confirm me, and strengthen me, and establish me.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen (Jude 24–25).

I preached a sermon at Together for the Gospel last year on this text. And I chose it because coming to the end of 32 plus years of ministry, I felt how sweetly true it’s been. And the point I made was, isn’t it remarkable that Jude would call such great things to bear witness to the keeping power of God? The main point of this text is that he’s able to keep you from stumbling and to present you (or make you stand). And to say that he says, “Now unto the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, and majesty, and dominion, and authority before all time, now and forever.” That’s a big doxology, and all of it to celebrate the fact that he keeps his own. It’s a big deal to be kept by God. It’s worthy of words like that. So if you’re 19 or 79 here, you should celebrate the promise and power of God, he keeps, he keeps, he holds me. It’s the same thing in 1 Corinthians 1:8–9:

[He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

And those whom he calls, he keeps. And those whom he keeps, he glorifies. He could have said it that way in Romans 8.

New Covenant Stability

It’s the same thing in Ephesians 1:13 where we were “sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.” The reason why you have the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit is a seal. Which means he has been given you as a kind of down payment and security so that he is at work producing what is needed for your endurance. This is perhaps the most clear and glorious statement of all with regards to perseverance. This is the New Covenant right here:

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Limited atonement is simply a way of saying, “Christ died to keep you saved.” Your keeping yourself saved doesn’t make the blood effective. The blood is effective in keeping you saved. It’s the blood of the covenant. He bought your keeping. That’s good news and the strong meat of assurance.

Philippians 1:6 says:

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Luke 22:31–32 says:

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.

This is one of the reasons I believe in Jesus. I love this kind of sovereign talk. This is absolutely sovereign talk. Do you see it? He says, “Peter, Satan (like with Job) has come to the Father and asked if he could sift you tonight.” How are things sifted? You have a square here with a mesh wire, right? And you put the dirt or the grain, or whatever you’re sifting in there. You shake it. And then some stuff comes through and some stuff doesn’t. You’re trying to separate something. Well what is Satan trying to separate from Peter? He’s going to push Peter through the grid. What does he want to come out the bottom and what does he want to stay on top? He wants Peter at the bottom and his faith on top. That’s what Satan is doing in your life regularly. He wants faith to be sifted out of your life and he’s going to do it by making Peter scared stiff to tell the truth about Jesus, three times.

Now, Jesus knows this is coming. And he says to Peter, “I have prayed for you.” And that’s what he’s doing for you right now in heaven. It says so in Romans 8. He is at the Father’s right hand interceding for us, Romans 8:34. What did he pray for Peter? Because he says, “When you have turned again.” He says, “Three times you’re going to deny me, and when you’ve turned, I’m going to make you a rock. Strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus did not pray, evidently, that he would deny him. Because I think the Father always answers Jesus’s prayers. He never says, “Oh, Jesus you get 70 percent of your prayers answered.” If Jesus asks for something, he gets it. When he asked, what he asked for was, “Keep him, Father. Don’t let him fall headlong.” The Lord establishes the steps of the righteous, when he falls he will not be cast headlong.” That’s our fighter verse for this week. And then he returned.

He didn’t say, “If you return.” See that right there? He didn’t say, “If you return I’ll try to make something of you.” He said sovereignly, “You will return. And here’s what I’m going to do when you return.” That’s what I mean by calling it sovereign language. It’d be like somebody coming up to me and saying, “I’ve prayed for you. I know you’re going to blow it this weekend. And when you’re done blowing it, here’s what I’m going to do with it.” Who do you think you are, God? Yes, that’s who he thinks he is when he talks like this.

So you will fail. There’s not a person in this room who will make it a week without something notable, discernible sin. How should you feel about that? Is that a way of failure to make it to the end? It wasn’t for Peter. So one of the things your Lord Jesus is praying for you in heaven right now, is that everyone of those stumblings, like Peter’s stumblings, would somehow circle around through repentance and confession, and bring you out stronger. “Strengthen your brothers when you have turned.” That’s the way he keeps us.

Initial Faith is Persevering Faith

Next, falling away from faith and holiness shows that we never truly belonged to Christ. Now we’re back to those texts that sounded so threatening at the beginning, like, “Those who do such things will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” He’s saying that to a church. And some of the people in that church walked away. Having been in the church for many years, maybe even deacons in the church, they walked away from the faith, through it all. And here is what John says about them:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us (1 John 2:19).

That is a Calvinist talking, right? An Arminian would say, “They really were of us, but they went out because you can lose your salvation.” And John won’t even come close to saying that ever.

No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him (1 John 3:6).

He said, “If they’ve really gone out from us, they were never in.” That’s what he says. It’s not like you can escape from sin for a while and then fall back into a life of sin and lose your salvation. If you fall back into a life of sin and never come back to Jesus, you have never seen him or known him. Or here’s a really powerful way of saying it in Hebrews 3:13–14:

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

Now think through the meaning of those verb tenses. Because that’s a good accurate translation. He does not say, “If we don’t hold fast our confession to the end, then we will lose our participation in Christ.” He doesn’t say that. He says, “If we don’t hold fast our assurance to the end, we never did become partakers of Christ.” Do you see that? He says, “We have become (past) if the future turns out this way. If the future doesn’t this way, we weren’t part of Christ.” It’s just saying exactly what 1 John 2:19 said — “They went out from us because they were never of us.” And he says, “If we don’t stay true to the end, we never were partakers.” Because you can’t lose your salvation. Therefore, let us be vigilant and fight the fight of faith as assured victors.

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall (2 Peter 1:10).

Give yourself to trust and obey Jesus and thus reflexively confirm that you are his, called and chosen.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing (2 Timothy 4:7–8).

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12–13).

What I’m illustrating with this text is that we fight like victors. We don’t fight with desperation. When you come against the devil or you come up against an opponent who hates your faith, or you come up against temptation, you don’t fight with a kind of, “I don’t know if I’m saved and I have to win this in order to find out if I’m saved.” You come up with the confidence, “He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world, and I will not be moved.”

This text right here which I didn’t put in the list, but I put it down this morning as I was going through these. Philippians 3:12 says:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Why do you press on to make him your own? Why do you fight through temptation and lean into and embrace the fullness of your future in Christ, and push aside all obstacles and distractions, seeking to press on to Christ? Answer: Because he has made you his own. This is my picture of it. My hand is stretched out to Jesus for all that he has for me in the future. And stretching out my hand is not like I’m falling. But rather he’s just totally got me right here. I’m just kind of dangling here like this. And he’s got me right here. And his hand is omnipotent and I’m just reaching out. That’s what I mean, fight as a victor. Lift your hand up as one who’s being held up. There’s no other way to fight as a Christian.

Effects of the Doctrines of Grace

Here’s what we’re doing. We’re stepping back from the five points and we’re asking, “What difference does that make? What happens to your life?” I feel like I’ve got the advantage now of speaking at the end of my pastoral ministry and not just at the beginning where I could say, “Here’s what I think it’s going to do for you.” I’m going to tell you here’s what it did for me and what I think it would do for you. I have 10 of these and we’ll see if we can give them about three minutes each.

1. Stand in Awe of God

First, it makes me stand in awe of God and leads me into the depth of true God-centered worship. The first time I saw while teaching Ephesians at Bethel in 1977, the praise of the glory of God’s grace is the goal of all things I was just blown away. Three times in Ephesians we are to live for the praise of his glory. And it has led me to see that we cannot enrich God, and therefore his glory is most glorified in me when I’m most satisfied in him. Worship is an end in itself. It has made me feel how low and inadequate are my affections, so that the psalms of longing come alive and make worship intense: “As a heart, as a deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”

The bigger your God gets and the more glorious he is, and the more pervasive he is in your experience in the world, the more you see the inadequacy of your own affections for him and worship becomes a longing that’s very intense. And God, I think, is very much honored by such longings.

2. Protected from Trifling

Second, it protects me from trifling with divine things. It helps me mingle gladness and gravity in a robust and healthy way. One of the curses of our culture seems to me is banality, cuteness, cleverness, etc. It’s worse now than 50 years ago, I think, and it was bad then. Television and social media is the main sustainer of our addiction to superficiality and triviality. God is swept into this, hence the trifling with divine things.

Earnestness in our day is not excessive or widespread. It might have been once. There are imbalances in certain healthy people, granted. But this from Robertson Nicoll about Charles Spurgeon is still timely:

Evangelism of the humorous type may attract multitudes but it lays the soul in ashes and destroys the very germs of religion. Mr. Spurgeon is often thought by those who do not know his sermons to have been a humorous preacher. As a matter of fact there was no preacher whose tone was more uniformly earnest, reverent, and solemn.

I really would recommend this book right here. If you’re new to Reformed Theology and you’re wondering, “Is there a simple book?” There’s several in the book store. I recommended a whole bunch to Matt. And I would put you on to those. And I didn’t mention this one and I’m sorry. So Matt, if you’re in the room, go ahead and add Forgotten Spurgeon to the list some day. And the people who go there later will see it in the weeks to come.

The Forgotten Spurgeon is just a kind of biography of Spurgeon, drawing out how Reformed Theology (or the doctrines of grace) made a difference in his life. And a lot of people have skipped that part of Spurgeon. That’s why he wrote the book.

But the point here is, when you believe in the fullness of total depravity, unconditional election, definite atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints, all held together by an infinitely sovereign God, it gives such a weight to life, a glorious weightiness to life that nothing can be trifled with anymore. I don’t think it makes people morose. We’ve laughed a lot in this seminar. But I hope the main feel of the seminar is, “Good night, that’s serious stuff. That’s really heavy, weighty, and glorious.”

We should spread in our culture, not more triviality, and trifling, and silliness, and cutesie banter. Everybody seems to be falling in line with talk show hosts and the stand-up comedians. Because it’s just so much fun having people laughing with you — at your jokes and your clever repartee, your turn of a phrase, and your hip, cool reference to the latest movie. It’s just so foreign to the seriousness of it all. And if you take that to mean, “Oh we’ve got to be morose, sad, and gloomy in church,” then you’re just not listening to me. Or either you don’t have the capacity. I mean you’ve got silliness and you’ve got moroseness, those are your two options. Well, you’re just not well if those are your two options. You need to grow up. There are many options in between silly and morose. I think believing these things helps you find a healthy way of being full of gravity and weight, and full of healthy joy that enables you to have the biggest, most solid kinds of pleasures in God, and laugh your lungs out over your daddy’s jokes when he comes home.

3. Marvel at Conversion

Third, it makes me marvel at my own salvation. In Ephesians we’ve looked a lot at chapter 1, which speaks about being chosen before the foundation of the world and predestined unto the praise of the glory of his grace. Those are God’s great purposes. We haven’t at Ephesians 1:17–20, which we should have. And there Paul is praying and what he prays is, is that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we would know three things: the greatness of our inheritance, the greatness of our calling, and the greatness of the power at work in us who believe. And what he wants to do is see those.

So you have got theology in Ephesians 1, saying, “Here’s the great purpose of God, that he be praised.” And then Paul knows between the beginning of chapter 1 and later in chapter 1, the problem is we don’t see that as glorious. Therefore we don’t feel anything, we don’t praise his glory. And so he prays, “O God, open the eyes of our hearts.” I think seeing these things gives God something to open your eyes to, so that when you see it you are stunned.

Every ground of boasting is removed, I’m right here. Every ground of boasting is removed. Brokenhearted joy and gratitude abounds. When God has given us a taste of his own majesty and our own wickedness, then the Christ life becomes a thing very different from the conventional piety. Edwards describes it beautifully. This is just about my favorite paragraph in Jonathan Edwards:

The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope; their joy even when it is unspeakable and full of glory is a humble, brokenhearted joy.

Do you have a category for brokenhearted joy? Do you have a category for that? If you haven’t, you’re not old enough yet. You’re too young, not experienced enough. You haven’t been broken in a way that will show you can rejoice in it, not just after it. Edwards continues:

Brokenhearted joy leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child, more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior.

If my theology of sovereignty is not having that effect on me, it is not the fault of the theology, it’s my heart. Don’t blame my theology for my sin. This is the effect it has when we are responsive to it.

4. Alert to Substitutes

Fourth, it makes me alert to man-centered substitutes that pose as good news. One of the most effective protections of the church is to have the ballast of sovereignty in the bottom of our boat, so that as the winds are blowing we may tack hard like this in the sailboat, but it’s not going to flop over because it has the ballast of sovereignty in the bottom of the boat.

In the 18th century in New England, the slide from Jonathan Edward’s high view of sovereignty led first to Arminism, then to Universalism, then to Unitarianism. And so also in England in the 19th century after Spurgeon. These doctrines of grace are a bulwark against man-centered teachings in many forms that gradually corrupt the church and make her weak from the inside, all the while looking strong and popular. Contrast 1 Timothy 3:15. It’s the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

I have said just face on — and some of you have heard me — to pastors of churches with 10,000 or 20,000 people, “Please, please give yourself more concertedly to the truth. You’re a very good communicator. God has entrusted you with an incredible ministry. Don’t dumb this down continually. Give yourself to the riches of grace in the last half of your ministry life, because your legacy will be more enduring and your effectiveness more pervasive if you give yourself to the whole counsel of God, instead of pragmatic simple things week in and week out.” I believe that. So if you’re going to be a pastor, I’m not encouraging you to be a pragmatic pastor, but one who may grow more slowly, because not everybody loves to hear the truth. But you will be stronger in the end and your church will be a bulwark and pillar of the truth.

5. Groaning Over God-Belittling

Fifth, it makes me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular God-belittling culture. I can hardly listen to a news show, or read the news, or look at a TV show or ad, or billboard, without feeling the burden that God is missing. It’s not new and so I shouldn’t talk as though it was a crisis that’s new, because it was the same in the 1950s and 1960s as it is now, but here it is again. I’ve talked to a lot of younger people, and middle aged people, who don’t feel that at all. They are happy to watch 18 weeks of a TV show and it doesn’t even enter their mind, “God is gone, or hated, or belittled. And I should be weeping and troubled.” No, just happy. It’s fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. I almost hate that word because it is so used by everybody to describe preaching, ministry, funerals, weddings, and TV. Our universal word of joy is fun, which shows how thin things have gotten.

When God is the main reality and is treated as a no-reality, I tremble at the wrath that is being stored up. Believing these glorious things about God and his ways helped me to be shocked. So many Christian are sedated with the same drug as the world. But these teachings, which we’ve spent eight hours on, are a great antidote. Does it ever bother you that there’s a whole section in “The Star Tribune” on sports for the last 50 years and no section on God. I think some editors are going to give an account on the judgment day. God will say, “Excuse me, where was I?” They might say, “Well, we thought, we thought, um, church would take care of that.” God’s just missing. God does not like to be missed.

I don’t even like the term “Christian college” and you come to a class on sociology. You come to the end of 10 class sessions and think, “Is God in this room? Is God in this class?” They say, “Oh he’s the foundation of everything we believe. But we’re learning from all sources. He’s the foundation.” I tell you what, I’ve got a foundation in my house made out of cement blocks, and I never think about it. And it gets no glory from not being thought about. God does not like to be taken for granted. So don’t call him the foundation of your life and then forget him for 10 weeks and think he’s honored. It’s a big deal. It makes me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular God-belittling culture.

6. Confident in God’s Work

Sixth, it makes me confident that the work that he planned and began, he will finish. It gives me personal assurance. And yeah, there it is again, Romans 8. There isn’t a more solid structure to build your life on than the doctrines of grace that we’ve been talking about. There isn’t a more steel backbone for life.

7. Everything in Light of God’s Purposes

Seventh, it makes me see everything in light of God’s sovereign purposes — that from him and through him to him are things, to him be glory for ever and ever. All of life relates to God. There’s no compartment where he’s not all important. And the one who gives meaning to everything. First Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

I mean just think how pervasive that statement is. So watch this. I’ll take a drink. Every time you do that, it should be to the glory of God. And you do things like that all day long. That’s simple. Is he that pervasive in your life? Are you that conscious of him? Is he just always dominant? Is he there? These doctrines, I’m arguing, if once they take, they’re there. You’re there, he’s there, always.

I wrote an article for the church years ago called How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God. I said things like, thank him for the taste buds on your tongue. Thank him for the vitamin C that’s going to keep you from getting scurvy. Thank him by enjoying the taste. He made it, it says something about his own delectable nature. Enjoy it for his sake as a foretaste of him. Give thanks for trees that grow oranges. Give thanks for stores that sell oranges. Give thanks for truck drivers who get them to you and airplanes. Give thanks for the refrigeration that God made. All these things are going to God.

I was doing this with my sons. I wrote this when I had four sons sitting around the table. I said, “How do you drink orange juice if they all like orange juice and I have just enough for three?” Glorify God with your orange juice by saying, “Just pour a little less in my glass so that it goes around.” That’s the way you glorify God. In fact the context in 1 Corinthians is love, it’s not gratitude mainly, it’s love horizontally. Give thanks that with the strength you’re getting from it you’re going to serve him, and dedicate yourself to serve him. Just be aware of God in the drinking of the orange juice and let it all become worship. Seeing God’s sovereign purpose worked out and hearing Paul say that he accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will makes me see the world this way.

8. Hopeful for Answered Prayer

Eighth, it makes me hopeful that God has the will, the right, and the power to answer prayer that people be saved and changed. I’m arguing now, that believing the doctrines of grace, especially irresistible grace, should give you indomitable confidence to pray for the impossible to happen. The warrant for prayer is that God may break in and change things. He can turn the will around. “Hallowed be they name,” means when you pray it, “Cause people to hallow your name.” so you’re asking God to act on a non-hallower, to make them hallow. Or a weak-hallower, like me, to hallow with intensity. You’re praying to cause hearts to be opened to that.

We should take the New Covenant promises now. How do you pray for unbelievers if you are a Calvinist? Let me give you five or six examples. We should take the New Covenant promises of God and plead with God to bring them to pass on our children, and our neighbors, and among the unreached peoples of the world. So here they come, I’m simply taking, and you can do this too, the New Covenant promises which are blood bought, and asking God to make them come true for others who are not yet saved.

You can pray:

• “God, please take out of their flesh the heart of stone and give them a new heart of flesh.”
• “Lord, circumcise, right here. Lord, circumcise their heart so that they love you.”
• “Father, put your Spirit within them and cause them to walk in your statutes.”
• “Lord, grant them repentance and the knowledge of the truth, that they may escape from the snare of the devil.”
• “Father, open their hearts so that they may believe the gospel.”

Just take biblical promises and turn them into prayers. Because we have a sovereign God who has a right and a power to answer those prayers. An Arminian cannot pray that way, because the Arminian always has to put in a little clause that says, “But they have free will God, and you can’t intrude upon that. You can’t become the decisive cause of their faith. You always have to let them be the decisive cause of their faith. Because that’s what free will means. And you’re not going to break that.” I don’t pray that way, and the Bible I don't think encourages us to pray that way.

9. Essential Evangelism Under the Sovereignty of God

Ninth, believing these things reminds me that evangelism is essential for people to come to Christ and be saved, but that its success is not finally dependent on me or limited by the hardness of the unbeliever. So my weakness and their hardness is no obstacle to God successfully saving somebody. It gives hope to evangelism to believe these things, especially in hard places. Jesus says:

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).

He brings them. His sheep will hear his voice and follow. Our job is to sound like Jesus when we talk, the words of Jesus, the words of the gospel. And he gives them ears so they hear and follow.

Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people (Acts 18:9–10).

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth . . . (1 Corinthians 3:6)

There it is. God gives the growth. You plant, you water, oh yes. There is no seed without planting and no plant without watering, but God is the one who decisively gives life and growth to the seed. What is impossible with man is possible with God. It is God’s work, so throw yourself into it with abandon. I hope you become more fruitful evangelists because of this seminar, more devoted and fruitful prayers because of this seminar.

10. God’s Sure Triumph

Finally, tenth, it makes me sure that God will triumph, believing these things:

I am God, and there is no other;
     I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
     and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, “My counsel shall stand,
     and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:9–10).

Conclusion: God gets the glory, we get the joy forever. God gets the exaltation, we get the exultation. So if anybody ever says to you, “Ah, one letter can hardly make any difference.” Oh yes it can. God is to be exalted, we are not. We exult in his exaltation. One letter makes all the difference in the world.

That no human being boast in the presence of God . . . (1 Corinthians 1:29)

That’s the negative purpose of all these doctrines.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31).

That’s the positive purpose of all these doctrines. This is what life is for, boasting in the Lord and helping others come to see him as worthy of being boasted in.