Oh, good morning. Good to see
everybody this morning. I want you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of John, John chapter one. John chapter one. And before
I read our text, I wanna read another piece of
scripture. You don't need to turn to it.
But over in John chapter three, the Lord, in speaking to Nicodemus,
said this, except the man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God. Now, I'm not gonna get into a
lot of detail in what it means to be born again, other than
it's merely the infusion of a new heart after God's heart
in those that he has everlastingly loved. That's the simple definition
of being born again. So with that in mind, in John
1, chapter, I mean, verse 13, no, let's back up to 12. Verse
12, John 1, verse 12, but as many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them, that believe
on his name. Verse 13, which is my text, says,
which were born, not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God. Now it says there, when it's
not of blood, that means that because Your mother and your father were
believers, that doesn't mean the children are gonna be believers. And we have a lot of examples
of that in the scripture. Primarily, the most bold one
seen is that of King David, who was a man after God's own heart,
yet he had a son that wanted to kill him. So it's not of blood. The son didn't inherit anything.
Then the scripture says, nor of the will of the flesh. Now
it brings it down to our own personal selves, our own natural
thinking, our own minds, our own thoughts of what our will
ought to be. It says it's not of our will. We have no power to will ourselves
to be born again. That's what that means. Then
it says, nor of the will of man. Well, that's, Brother Marvin
stands here and preaches Sunday after Sunday, and he wills that
everybody that would hear his word would believe, but that's
not the case. They don't do it. He has no power. He preaches the gospel, but he
has no power, no will to affect those that hear of being born
again. But our text says, which were
born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God, God alone. Now scripture's plain.
I mean, you can cut and dice this all you want to, but it's
plain. It takes completely out of our
hands, out of man's hands, the will to be born again. Regardless of that, regardless
of that truth. And you can't argue with scripture.
Let God be true, but every man a liar. There is a heresy today
called free will. And if I were a guessing man,
I would say probably between 98 and 98%, 95 and 98% of the
churches today preach this doctrine of free
will of man in salvation. But what is meant by free will? Well, when we look in the New
Testament, there's no such word found in the New Testament of
free will. It is found in the Old Testament.
I forget, I counted it one time, it was probably a dozen times
or so, but you always find it saying free will offering. And in that case, what that means
is it's a voluntary offering. It is not the free will that
is being preached today. So what is free will? Well, if
it's not in scripture, then obviously it had to be invented by men.
It had to be invented by men. So what are we going to find
out? What's it mean? Well, let's go to man's dictionary. That's all
I've got. That's all I've got. And here's what the dictionary
says. The power of acting without the
constraint of necessity or predestination. The ability to act at one's own
discretion, choice, or decision. Now, I want you to remember as
I go through this message, I want you to put in the back of your
mind this statement that says the power of acting without constraint. Remember that word, constraint,
because that's what we're gonna deal with. What free will says
is the will is free to act in any way it wants to without any
interference, any constraints, any reservations to that will. The problem is, this heresy is
what I call the heresy of all heresies, because it robs the
Lord God of his sovereignty. Absolutely, it robs him of his
sovereignty. Now, as I was thinking about
this, I thought, you know, men will stand in a pulpit this morning
and preach that God is sovereign, except in salvation. And what
they're really saying is, well, God's part sovereign. Well, that's
a contradiction in terms. You can't be part sovereign.
You just can't be. You're either sovereign or you're
not sovereign. The king is either sovereign
or he's not sovereign. And God is either sovereign or
he's not sovereign, with no in between. And we know, we know
from Scripture that he is the sovereign God. And also, It denies
the effectual work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but taking that
effectual work out of his hand, it put it in men. It's almost
like their salvation is a hit and miss thing. The Lord Jesus
is sitting in heaven on the throne, wringing his hands over trying
to get men to convert to him. And it puts the salvation in
their hands. This is a big lie. This is a
big lie, and I'm gonna get into this a little more here in a
minute. Now this heresy, this heresy is as old as man is himself. And by that I mean that it started
in the Garden of Eden. When Satan said you'll be as
God's, knowing good and evil, notice what he didn't say. He
didn't say you'll be as God, but you'll be as gods. What he's
saying, you yourself, Adam and Eve, will be gods. You'll be
able to make up your own mind about what's right and wrong.
You'll be able to make up your own choice. And that doctrine
has been in effect ever since. That has been born into every
one of us. And I'm gonna get into that too.
Now, this is nothing new, this free will. Like I said, it started
in a garden, but it's continued all down through the ages. In
the 400s and 500s, in Augustine's time, there was a theologian
by the name of Pelagius, and the doctrine of free will was
so pronounced that it became known as Pelagianism in his time,
in Augustine's time. And then it continued on down
until the 1500s in Martin Luther's time, Calvin's time. And it was heralded by a man
named Arminius. And that's where we get the name
Arminianism today, when they speak of free will. It's a false
doctrine. Now, it was so pronounced in
that time, in Luther's time, that he wrote a paper and The
paper has since been reproduced in book form. I've got a copy
of it. And it's titled Bondage of the Will, in which he was
actually, I don't like to use the word arguing,
but that's what it was, arguing against a man by the name of
Erasmus over this thing of free will. And this, he wrote a very
lengthy book on the bondage of the will. And this bondage, now
here, I'm gonna break this down. This bondage occurs not only
in our spiritual life, but it also occurs in our physical life. Right now, today, with what you've
done, your will, naturally speaking, is in bondage. My will is in
bondage. People don't believe that. You
tell people that, they think, well, you just don't want to
talk about, you're a liar. So here's what we experience
as to not having a free will ourselves. I'm willing to do what I want
to do. And I'm not willing to do what
I don't want to do. Now think about that for a minute.
Here's the will, but that will has a motivation. What is that
motivation? I want to do it. I like it. There's
something that is driving my will. In everything I do, there's
something driving my will. So our will always follows our
natural inclinations. always. It follows our prejudices,
our will follows our feelings, our conscience, our disposition,
our moods, our affections, all these things, and it changes
day by day. What I did, what I was willing
to do today, I may not be willing to do tomorrow for for some unforeseen
reason or something that's working within me that says, I don't
feel like doing that, maybe I'm sick, maybe I can't do what I
wanted to do, you see? The will is in bondage to our disposition, our makeup,
our natural selves. Thus, Remember I told you to
remember this little word, constraint? Our will is always acted upon
by constraints. The will's not free. We just
don't willy nilly say, well, I'm gonna do this today without
consideration. There's something that motivates
it, and that's probably the better word. It's a motivation. There's
something in us that motivates us to do things. And so what
this does, this makes the will a follower, not a leader. And therefore, if it's not a
leader, it can't be free. In essence, it is a slave to
our inclinations, that's a fact. Our day-to-day feelings and all
these other things. Thus the will's in bondage and
not free. Which brings me to this big lie,
and that's all it is, a big lie of free will in man's salvation. That's exactly the truth. I'm
not gonna lie to you this morning, that's the truth, and I've come
to see it in my own life. And like the many constraints
that we have in our natural life, it's not so in our spiritual
life, not in the in the ability to turn ourselves to God. There's
not any influence upon our will but one, just one, and that is
our inability. We have no ability. I want you to turn with me to
Romans chapter eight. Turn with Romans chapter eight,
verse seven. Romans chapter eight, verse seven. I'm about to kill this thing
called free will right here. You know, I was thinking as I
was reading this, David, King David, when he was just a boy,
took a stone, one stone, and killed a giant. Well, with this
verse I'm about to read, we're gonna kill that giant, free will. And we'll get into it. Romans
eight, verse seven. I'll read it and then I'm gonna
go back over it just a few minutes and explain it. It says, because
the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. Now when it says the
carnal mind, that means the natural mind, the natural reasoning,
the natural heart, excuse me, as we're born, we're born with
a natural mind. We're born with a carnal mind.
That's what the scripture calls it. And it says that carnal mind
is enmity against God. Now that word enmity means hostile. Our natural reasoning is hostile. against God. But that's not the
important part of this little, this one statement. The concentration
here is this little word against. Now, we think that might be kind
of a passive statement. Well, I know my heart's not right
with God, and you know, et cetera, all this stuff. But this word
against means, it's like me walking across the floor here, walking
right into that wall with my nose straight against that wall.
I'm stopped, I can't go any further. That's what this enmity is against
God. It's like you walked up to God
face to face, nose to nose, and said, I hate you. That's what it says, Marvin.
That's it. This enmity against God, it's, It's almost a mild term, we can't
really explain it. And you know, when men come to
preach this, you won't ever hear a free will preacher, anybody
that teaches and preaches free will, speak of this first. They won't touch it. I've never
heard anybody speak of it. But this enmity, this hostility
is face-to-face against God. We, by nature, and this is harsh
words and men will call you a liar, they'll say that's not true,
I don't hate God, but by nature, we're born hating God. And it says, for it is not subject
to the law of God. I don't want any part of it.
That's what it means, I don't want any part of him. That's
what the natural heart says. I do not want any part of God. I don't want any part of the
God of this Bible. Now, they'll have a religion.
Every man will have a religion. That's instilled in every man
from Romans 1. God's left a witness in every
man. Every man knows there's a God, even these so-called atheists.
They're liars. They know there's a God. They're
just not going to bow to him. I remember Scott used to say
the scripture in Psalms He says, the fool has said in
his heart, there is no God. Scott used to say, what he really
means is, there is no God for me. There is no God for me. I don't want any part of him.
And so for his, this carnal mind is not subject to the law of
God. It refuses to bow to the God
of the Bible. But here's the clincher of this
scripture right here. Look at this last part. Neither
indeed can be. It's an impossibility is what
this says for a man born naturally to subject himself to God. He can't do it. Why? Well, we're
gonna find out why. It is an impossibility to turn
to the God of this Bible. Now there's a lot of gods in
this world and a lot of people turn to them. But you know there
are gods that they manufacture in their own mind. There are
gods that they want. There are gods that they can
live with. I can live with that kind of god, you know. Often
think about People talk, and I've heard this before. I had
a fella tell me one time, he said, you know, I don't wanna
take, and he was not religious. I mean, he hated it, but he said,
if I was ever gonna be, take up a religion, he said, I'd probably
take up Catholicism. Why? Because it's easy. It lets you have your sin and
religion too. And that's all religion, all
religion. All religion's that way. Jeremiah
17, nine says this, the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. Who can know it? That desperately
there wicked means incurable. It's incurable. The heart cannot
be cured. The natural heart, it's an impossibility. And Marvin's pointed this out
many times in his messages. God doesn't do anything with
that old heart. You can't. It's incurable. It's dead. Yet people will say, well, I
know my heart. I know my heart. Or you hope
you'll hear people say, well, you know, he don't have a bad
heart. He's got a pretty good heart. No, no. We do not know,
and I'm talking about believers too, I'm talking about myself,
I do not know the depth of the sin that lies within my heart,
this old nature I'm talking about, in the flesh, sad, sad, sad. And we'll never know at this
side of eternity. That's where faith comes in.
We believe God, we have to believe God, that's all we have. I can't
see the depth of my iniquity. It lies so close to me. It's
so much a part of me that I can't see it. And we've grown over
that. We've grown over that. The believer
grows over that. That he sees that sin, but he
don't see the depth of it. And you lay down at night and
you think, oh my. And you go over your thoughts
and you think, well, Lord, help me. Where did these thoughts
come from? I can't get rid of them. Proverbs
20 verse nine says this. Who can say I have made my heart
clean? Can I say that? No. I'm pure
from a sin. There's no man that can say that.
There's some people, some people, I've heard people say that. Well,
I don't sin anymore. Well, you're not a believer. You don't
believe in the gospel, because that's not the way of a believer. The Lord God looks upon, the
scripture says, on a man or woman that is of a broken and contrite
heart, that sees their sin, that feels their sin, the weight of
sin. I believe that one of the scripture
where the Lord says, come unto me all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, I'll give you rest. He's talking about his people.
We're laden, we're laden with this sin. We're burdened with
this sin. It's a daily thing, we live with
it, we can't get away from it. We cry unto God, God delivers. Thank God one of these days he
will, completely. Proverbs 16, two says, All the
ways of a man are clean in his own eyes. Isn't that true? Boy,
I mean, you hear, you know, people say, well, you know, I know I'm
a sinner, but I'm not that bad. I'm just, you know, I don't do
this and I don't do that. Well, you don't know your own
heart. But the Lord, the Lord looks
upon a heart, it says, but the Lord weigheth the spirits. my clean in my own heart. Do
I think that? I think I'm a pretty good guy. Most people do. Most religionists
do. Free will people believe that.
I made a decision. I'm clean. Now our text says,
which were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God. God is going to have to do something. for us to be born again, for
us to have life again, for us to be free from this sin. That's
the object. That's the object of a believer.
I think of that scripture, Lord's Sermon on the Mount. Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. Let me ask
you a question. I ask myself the same question.
Do I hunger and thirst after righteousness? That's a mark
of a believer. You wanna know if you're a believer
or not? I wanna know if I'm a believer or not. Do I hunger and thirst
after the righteousness of God? Do I want to be free from me? I'm my own worst enemy. You can't
worry about what's out here in the world. I don't worry about
that. Satan. Now right here's the problem,
here's the problem I can't get away from, and I live with it
every day. I carry it with me, I carry it
with me, and I'm in bondage. I think it's in Hebrews, let
me see if I can quote it. It says, speaking of the believers,
he says, who were in bondage throughout their whole life for
fear of death. That's a believer. The believer knows he's in bondage
to this sin. Paul says, I'm a slave. He said, I'm sold under sin.
I'm on the auction block. Now, as I said, God's gonna have
to do something. In Psalms 110.3, it says this,
we're made willing in the day of his power. Now think about that scripture.
Here, all of a sudden, the believer has a will, but what happens?
Something had to motivate that will. That was the power of God.
That was power from God. That was the motivation for all
of us, for believing, for willing, for making us willing. God had
to do something. God had to give us a new heart
to believe the gospel of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, our will as a follower.
So it is going to take a new desire or inclination for our
will to follow, and that's what God does. He gives us a new desire. He gives us a new, I like to
use the word inclination. We're inclined to think upon
things above. We're inclined to desire righteousness. We're inclined to draw near to
God. That is being born again. Ephesians 2.1 says this, and
you hath he quickened. I said God's gonna have to do
something, here it is. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sin. That quicken there word means
made alive. Made alive. God infuses in man
new life. He doesn't do it with the old
heart. He gives him a new heart. He puts a new heart in this heart
of flesh. Ephesians 2.5 and follow-up says,
even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace are you saved. It's all by the grace of God.
This thing of free will, it's a made up, it's a made up doctrine. It's a made up doctrine. The
whole aim of it is to rob God of his glory. It's directed. It's not directed to man, it's
directed against God. And so how is his quickening
accomplished? We ask that, how does he do that? Romans 116, Marvin's quoted it
many times, we know it by heart. For I am not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. It is the preaching and teaching
of the gospel. Only through the gospel will
a man ever repent You've got to hear the good news, that's
it. If you never hear the gospel, you're gonna live and continue
in your old ways until you die, and then it's gonna be far, far
too late. So that's the essence of free
will. No such thing. It's a made up
word. It's a made up word as far as
it's being interpreted today. And it's, like I said a little
bit ago, it's pointed directly at God himself, the God of all
glory. And God says, I will not give
my glory to another. He's not gonna do it. He's not
gonna do it. So as I wind this down, I'll
close it. Let me say this, we've got one
go-around, and I don't like to use that word, but we understand
what it means. We've got one go-around in this
life, one. Not a chance, it's not a chance. There's one go-around, that's
it. We can't afford to be wrong. Now you think about it. Men don't
believe they're sinners. And I don't understand this,
I don't understand the depth of it, but men, we don't see
this sin for what it is, and men don't believe they're sinners.
And so there's a disconnect between what we believe and what actually
is. God is going to put men in hell,
eternal punishment forever, forever. and ever and ever. And men will say, I don't understand
that, I'm not that bad. Well, you see, there's a disconnect
there. There's something we don't understand.
Let's face it, let's be honest. I don't understand the depth
of it. I don't see the depth of this sin that deserves eternal
punishment except that it is against an eternal God. That's it, we can't fathom, we
can't fathom the depth of this thing called sin. And if we ask, well, do you believe
you're a sinner? Well, yeah, I know I'm a sinner, but God,
you know, God loves everybody, and that's what they teach. They
teach the big lie. So, I'm gonna close with that,
and I'm gonna leave you with one verse of scripture that sums
up everything I've said. This is the totality of salvation
found in Jonah chapter two, verse nine. You all know it. Salvation
is of the Lord our God. I pray the Lord would bless the
message and give us an understanding of his word. Amen.