That verse again in Romans chapter
1 and verse 18. And Paul says, the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. And in Ephesians
chapter 1, 3 through 6, Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He had
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of
His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. Now, I want to say this before
I begin or go any further. That is, I speak from personal
experience this morning when I talk about Arminianism and
about it being the big lie. For I began there. I once was
one. I once believed in that way.
And then God, by a miracle of His grace, using principally
A. W. Pink and his book and his
writings, brought me to the knowledge and the understanding of the
doctrines of what we call the doctrines of sovereign grace. And it was a glorious deliverance.
And I praise God for it every time that I think about it. Now, concerning the suppression
of truth and today, Arminianism and how it suppresses the truth
of the gospel of our blessed Lord. In our first two studies,
we've had two so far, we considered those that are without or outside
of the church. They're not movement that is
in the church that is suppressing the truth. And the first one
of them was idolatry, and the second one of them was evolution. Now, the evolutionist denies
even the existence of God, while the idolater picks himself out
and idols and worship something not that gives life, but something
that God himself has made. So, the suppression of the truth
of the Word of God is indeed a very great crime. It is an affront unto God to
suppress his truth and press it down and hold it under. And the churches of God and the
preachers of God and the people of God must ever be very vigilant
and on their guard at all time against those perverters and
twisters of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. For there are
those who would exchange the truth of God for a lie. And what some will call a lie
the truth, and others will call the truth a lie. And so they
are some who cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand. as we read over in the book of
Jonah chapter 4 and verse 11, even so there are some who cannot
really tell the difference between truth and error. Error sounds
good to them, truth may sound like a lie unto them. Now, before we dive into this
indictment of Arminianism this morning, let's establish a fact,
if we might, see that it is true in our mind, and that is that
life and history and the scripture and the whole world, yes, the
whole world system, whether it is religious, whether it is political,
whether it is cultural or whether it is societal, is founded principally
upon and operates upon a lie. There is more lie in the world
today than there is truth in many areas that we are associated
with. And that is owing to the fact
of the one that Paul calls the God of this world, 2 Corinthians
4. The Lord referred to this one
as the prince of this world John 12 31 14 30 and 16 11 he referred
to the wicked one as the prince of this world In Ephesians chapter 2 and verse
2, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now
works in the children of disobedience. 1 John 5 and verse 19, the whole
world lies in wickedness, therefore the whole world lies under Revelation
12 verse 9, John speaks of Satan, the serpent, the devil, who deceives
the whole world. The Lord said in John chapter
8 and verse 44, of the devil, that he was a murderer from the
beginning, and he abode not in the truth. Once in the truth,
but did not stay or abide in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. Therefore,
we learn the source of all of the lie that is out in the world
today. He introduced lie and murder
in the garden unto our first parent. Gil said that it was
with a lie that he deceived and he murdered our first parents,
Adam and Eve. The great lie that he came with
unto Eve you have in Genesis chapter 3. It consists in this,
you shall not surely die, your eyes shall be open, you shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. And he planted an evil,
wicked seed and a lie in the heart of Eve, our first mother. Now, especially is the devil
a liar and he is so in the realm of religion. 2 Corinthians 11,
14 and 15 Paul warns them that Satan transforms himself into
an angel of light and therefore It is no wonder if his ministers
also be transformed into ministers of righteousness. So they come
as if they are righteous, they come as if they have the truth
of God, and they deceive many and carry them down to their
destruction. Now coming on to our subject
today, how Arminianism suppresses the truth of God. And I must
tell you, when I come to tackle such a subject as this, I feel
as if I am in the mind, the thought, and the spirit of William Huntington,
a favorite author of mine, who wrote in 1791 these words. Think
of that. 1791, as he took up his pen to speak
of the skeleton of Arminianism. And he wrote these words. Some
may say, it is presumptuous of me as such a babe to take such
a great era by the collar, unquote. How they could speak in days
gone by. To take that era by the collar
and to shake it and therefore to choke it. On the other hand,
there are the words of the Apostle Peter 2 Peter 1 and 13, I think
it meet as long as I am in this tabernacle to stir up your pure
mind by way of remembrance. William Huntington wrote in that
article that I have, the Armenian skeleton, this very succinct
line, quote, Armenianism at present sadly obscures the truth of God,
unquote. And so we'll be looking at that
this morning. This is our premise today, that
Arminianism suppresses the truth of God so that it is not loosely
and is not free. Now, some might hear that charge
and come back at it. Some might put up a great and
a strong and a quick argument on that point, that Arminianism
is a suppressor of the truth. And this might be free of their
strongest arguments they imagine. Number one, They might say, how
can this be? They are quoting scripture. Constantly
are they quoting from the scripture. And then number two, they might
say, how in the world can we conclude this when the greater
part, the far greater part, the far greater number of those who
espouse Christianity hold to the doctrine of Arminianism as
their doctrine and as their creed. And then thirdly, there are those
who have turned it upon me and said unto me, you were first
an Arminian. How you know that you're right
at this time? So we answer those quibbles,
then move on our way. We answer in few words. if you
will remember the devil quoted scripture to our Lord. In the
temptation in the wilderness, Matthew chapter 4 and verse 6,
the devil actually quoted scripture from Psalm 91 verse 11 and 12
unto our blessed Lord. Of course, he took it out of
context and wrongly applied it unto our Lord. As for the numbers,
as for popularity, as for who has the greatest number, I think
often of that text in Luke 16 and 15, that which is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. That which
men love, that which is popular with men, you can usually put
it down, it is not of God. Now, as for when we were saved,
God knoweth, for God knoweth them that are His. As for sincerity,
I remind you that the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, as they
go about from door to door, are really serious and dedicated. And so are the Muslims dedicated
to their religion and their way. So what does that count for?
if it is not a dedication that is in accordance with the truth
of God. So the question is, wherein? How is it? How do they, as Huntington
said, sadly obscure the truth of God? Because I realize this
is a very, very serious charge because it strikes at the very
foundation of Arminianism and all that they hold and believe
and all that they preach. And it hangs a question for us
to consider over their profession. So the answer, to open the case
against Arminianism, there are two things that I want to bring
to our attention to begin with. Number one is their view of the
condition of man, of man, of the son of Adam, by and through
and after the fall. What is their view of depravity? And here it tells us a lot. This they do sadly obscure, as
I shall hope to show in a bit. And then the second thing is,
what is their real view, their underlying view, of the sovereignty
of God, especially in the matter of salvation? This they also
sadly obscure. and hold under, and hinder, and
suppress, and strongly resist, and strongly twist the sovereignty
of God in their doctrine. Now, first of all, human depravity. What is the degree of human depravity? According to scripture, spiritually,
what is the state of men and women as to depravity? That means as to being a sinner
in the sight of God. So what is their true state and
their true condition? First of all, is man not depraved? A lot of people say, all people
are good. Everybody's got a good heart.
Everybody's good at their heart. So is it true that we're not
depraved? Or is it true that we are somewhat
depraved, somewhat sinful, and somewhat down that path? Or is
it true that we are completely and absolutely depraved in each
and every part? And if we are depraved, when
were we depraved? When did we become depraved?
Was it at birth? Was it at an age of accountability? Was it sometime later on in our
life? Now, to define our term, depraved
or depraved or depravity, It is from maybe the French and
also the Latin, and it simply means corrupt, that man is corrupt,
that he is perverted, that he is crooked, that he is bad. Crooked
is a good word for that word depraved. And according to the
scripture, not human philosophy, not psychology, But according
to the scripture, what is the condition of man as to his depravity
as he stands before God, a son or a daughter of God? Are we
born innocent and pure and free from sin, as some say? Or are
we born in sin, as David said in the 51st Psalm? Are we sinful
from the womb or to become sinful sometime by the course of our
life during the time of our life? Is sin innate in our nature as
we are human beings, as we are born and come into the world? Or Are we born pure and innocent,
and then by bad example and bad environment and those bad teachings
that are around us, we become sinful from an example or from
without? Are many generally deny the pollution
of nature from birth. They deny what David said in
Psalm 51 and verse 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Now that's a great statement
from David. Considered in its context, it
is an amazing statement from the king of Israel. For David
there is under the conviction of his great sin with Bathsheba,
and he has become penitent as God has come and granted him
repentance. And he is confessing his great
sin with Bathsheba and that adultery and the murder that resulted
from that. Not only does he confess His
actual sin, Lord, against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in Thy sight. But He confesses also His original
sin. Not only have I done evil in
Thy sight, but in sin did my mother conceive me, and shapen
I was in sin. So Armenians blunt the truth
of full depravity and they hide it behind an age of accountability
or some imagined goodness. Now, why do they suppress the
truth of human depravity? It ought to be a leading doctrine,
for it is the truth of the scripture, and without us seeing ourself
as sinful, we will never be turned unto the Lord. John Owen may
have said it better than any that I've read. In his book,
The Display of Arminianism, unquote, he says one of the goals of Arminianism
is to exempt human nature from the charge of total depravity
and being without the ability to turn to God in one's own strength
and power and ability. In other words, they would retain
to themselves the power to turn or not turn, to convert or not
convert. They would insist that they make
themselves to differ, that they can believe unto eternal life
any time they would and upon their own. Turn to Christ by
their own resolve, using their own will, they say they're able
to turn to Christ and salvation. They deny that all of Adam's
race is totally dead in trespasses and in sin, as stated in Ephesians
2 and verse 1. Ephesians 2 and verse 5, even
when we were dead in trespasses and in sin. Colossians 2 and
13, and you being dead in your sin, and the uncircumcision of
your flesh. Now they further, in theory,
deny that the unregenerate are actually slaves and servants
of sin. But Paul said in Romans 6 and
17, ye were the servants of sin. That word is doulos, the slave. You were a servant. You were
a slave. sin and as such you did yield
up your members to uncleanliness and to iniquity unto iniquity
Romans 6 and 19 and this involves being under the curse of the
law from which there can be released only by the death of Christ being
made a curse for us and Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13. So they suppress this truth in
unrighteousness. But there is another aim and
another goal of Arminianism in their suppression of the truth. And number two, There is another
dogma of Arminianism whereby they suppress and hinder the
truth of God in unrighteousness. And that concerns the second
point, the sovereignty of God. While they profess divine sovereignty
in application, they actually deny it. What they admit at one
time, they take away and deny at another. So what is their
motive, then, behind this weakening of the divine sovereignty of
God, especially in the realm of salvation? Why such animosity
against the absolute sovereignty of God, that he has chosen a
people, Christ died for them, they will be regenerate, and
they will be called? is it that drives their opposition? Well, the answer is, I believe,
they would not give to God a total and complete sovereignty over
all things that His hands have made. They would retain to themselves
a certain independence from the sovereignty of God and God's
right to act as He would, and to choose whether they be saved
or whether they turn or not turn. They would reserve this unto
themselves rather than unto God. Now, this I believe they do in
order to preserve their favorite idol of free will, that Dagon-like
idol that they carry about on their shoulder and parade him
through the streets and bow before him, which is very little different
than that golden calf idol that Israel made in Exodus chapter
32, and what did they do? But dance all about it naked. They worshipped it, they offered
sacrifices unto it, and they even said to that inanimate golden
cave that Aaron had made, these be thy gods, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And so I see the Arminian
extolling free will saying, this is the means whereby I was saved. I exercised my free will unto
letting the Lord Jesus Christ come into my heart and bring
me salvation. I made the saving choice. I made the final and the saving
choice. I was saved. I accepted the Lord. I let Christ in. I believed and
therefore had this part in my salvation, and I've even heard
people say the Lord could not have saved them except I was
willing. I say with John Owen, what a
stout idol is this. Woe be unto you if when you come
your will is not in a good temper when the word of God is preached. To show that I do not exaggerate,
the power which they ascribe to free will, I'm going to give
you some direct quotes, verbatim. word by word from the pens of
some of the old-time Armenians. First of all, from the old master
himself, Arminius, whose name lives on in those wretched doctrines
which he espoused and propagated there in the college where he
taught. Here are the words of Arminius,
quote, All unregenerate have by virtue of their free will
a power of resisting the Holy Spirit, of rejecting the offered
grace of God. of condemning the counsel of
God concerning themselves, of refusing the gospel of grace,
of not opening the heart to him that knocks." Unquote. All unregenerate
have that power, said Arminius. Here's another from a man named
Corvinus, or Corvinus, who wrote, quote, For grant all the operations
of grace which God can use in our conversion, yet conversion
remains in our own free power. that we cannot be converted,
that is, we can either turn or not turn ourselves, unquote. And one more from Gretchen Shovias,
quote, Adam after his fall and all reprobates, listen, Adam
after his fall and all reprobates retained a power of believing,
unquote. Now, this is a suppression of
the truth. It is boasting against man's
depravity and against the sovereignty of God. It says literally that
man's will can outwill the will of God, that God's will is subservient
to the will of man and he cannot act any further. until man by
free will wills it to be so. And that in spite of the eternal
purpose of God, the election of grace, the fordonation of
some unto adoption, the redemption of Christ in His death, and the
regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. And yet, they say, God
must defer to this puny so-called free will of man and become but
a beggar knocking at the door that he might be able to gain
an entrance. does not scripture teach us in
Psalm 110 and verse 3, thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. When God puts forth his power,
the people shall be willing and shall willingly assemble before
him as an army to serve under him. I would like to ask you
a question concerning free will. Where is free will in the conversion
of Saul of Tarshish? Where do we find the smidgen
of free will in the conversion of Saul of Tarshish? You have
the record in the ninth chapter of the book of Acts. It is written
up extensively, both in the scripture and in Paul's testimony in the
word of God, yet not one time is free will ever mentioned.
He was the chosen vessel of God, Acts 9 15. He was ordained from
his mother's womb to that, Galatians 1 and 15. And in Galatians 1
15, called by grace. He was apprehended by Christ,
according to Philippians chapter 3 and verse 12. And that word
apprehended, at least in the King James version there, is
very interesting because it means to lay hold of. I was apprehended. I was laid hold of. It means
to seize. It means to overtake. It means
to come upon. It means to possess. I was taken
hold of by Christ. Christ took hold of me and not
the other way around. He was separated unto the gospel
of God, Romans chapter 1 and verse 1. Now Paul is a good example
because his conversion is likened unto a seizure on the part of
Christ, as on that day the Lord as John Eady put it, and I quote,
laid hold on him with a sharp and a sudden grasp and afterward
wielded him at his pleasure, unquote. He laid hold upon Saul. What was Saul doing? Was Saul
praying? Was Saul at the church? Was Saul
seeking the Lord? Was Saul reading his Bible? Was
Saul seeking after the Lord? Not at all. At the very moment
of his conversion, he was waging war against Christ and against
the church. You have that in Acts 7 and 8
and 9. He was waging war against Christianity. He hated it, and he hated it
with a passion. He was determined to stamp it
out, and he was taking the followers of Christ and putting them in
prison and punishing them, and some of them he was even putting
unto death. That's what he was doing when
the Lord Jesus Christ caught ahold of him on Emmaus Road,
and you have it in Acts chapter 9. Well, to move on, the Armenians
suppress the doctrine of election by turning it upside down. What they can't deny, they twist
and pervert. In fact, what great doctrine
concerning salvation have they not twisted and perverted and
suppressed? They deny, they suppress, and
then they pervert. The eternal decree, the determinant
counsel and foreknowledge of God Almighty, that he has a fixed,
immutable purpose that cannot be frustrated. They deny over
and over again. They do the same with election.
They do the same with ordination, foreknowledge, adoption, special
atonement. Here's what one old-timer wrote
about these things in the hands of Armenians. Quote, while the
Armenian is robbing you of the doctrine of sovereign grace,
while he is teaching you to resist the sovereign will of God, He
endeavors to charm your ears with free agency, unquote. That is, yes, if all these things
be true, but yet you have free will. You can do it or not do
it. You can go or not go. To charm your ears with human
ability. What a charm that is. How men
love that. How they love to be built up
and told how great and mighty and what power they hold in their
hand over their very own soul and eternal life. And you can
fill them with this deadly pride, and it is a deadly pride, for
God must have the final say, and God will have the final say. Now, let's take the doctrine
of election. The doctrine of election, we read about it here
in Ephesians chapter 1, from beginning has chosen you in Christ
before the foundation of the world that you should be holy
and unblameable before him in love. And this election, according
to the Bible, is from eternity. It is not from when we believe
or are born. It is from eternity. It is absolute. It is not qualified or conditional.
It is absolute. It is of individuals. It is not
of groups. It is of individuals. It is unto
salvation, the saving of the soul. It is in Christ, and it
is founded on the sovereign grace of God Almighty. Now the great
fly in the ointment of sovereign grace, I believe, one of them,
is universalism. In Ecclesiastes 10 and 1, Solomon
said, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to sting. some kind of perfume in that
day. And imagine dead flies falling into it and defiling. 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, a little
leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. And any work destroys grace. Romans 11 and verse 6. You say, well, if I bring in
this work or that work, to be attributed to my salvation. Grace is no more of grace. The elect are chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world. We read it in Ephesians
1, 3 through going down through verse 11. Yet Armenians say it
is false to say that election is confirmed from everlasting."
And again they say, men may make their election void and frustrate. And again they say, Election
is uncertain and revocable. In other words, a man may destroy
his election. Here's another saying from the
Armenian. God would have all to be saved,
but compel with a stubborn malice of some, he changes his purpose
and will have them to perish, unquote. Here's a changeable
God. He wills one thing, he can't
accomplish that. So he turns and wills another.
What is this but to make God's decrees both conditional and
mutable? And the scripture does not do
so. Election has suffered upon the torture rack of human reasoning. Some say all are chosen in Christ
to be saved and unelect themselves because they do not believe. And the present day heresy is
this. God chose or elected those that he looked ahead and foresaw
would believe and therefore would accept the Son of God. So let's speak further of Armenian
universalism before we're done today in two areas. Number one,
universal love of God. Number two, the universal atonement
of our Lord. Both of these Armenians tenaciously
cling to God loves all alike, Christ has died for all alike. Did you know It's the doctrine
of Arminianism that God loved Pharaoh as equally as he loved
Joseph, that he loved and died for Judas as well as he died
for the Apostle Paul, those that are never saved. That Christ
died equally for all is the doctrine of Arminianism, even those who
are never saved. even those who are already lost
and gone into eternal misery, accompanied, as they do, with
that doctrine of theirs of universal atonement. So they say free will,
therefore, is to accept what God offers and what God brings
before. And by faith, therefore, they
must appropriate Christ's death, making themselves to differ,
making the difference between heaven or hell by the exercise
of their free will. And the double premise of Arminianism
is the same to all. God loved you and Christ died
for all of you. And so that means, listen, that
means that God can love you and Christ can die for you and you
still not be saved, if that be true. That God's love is particular. Those he loves, he loves with
an everlasting love and bestows upon them the benefit of that
love. So if God loves all and Christ
died for all, then many of both do perish. So there's no comfort
in the love of God or in the blood of Christ to you if it
may be shed and you yet perish, if he may love you and yet you
not be saved. So therefore, the love of God
is effectual. Jeremiah 31 and verse 3, Romans
8, 35-39. What shall separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus? I have loved you with
an everlasting love. Beside, God has declared his
love to be discriminating. Have you read that? It's in Malachi
1 and it's in Romans chapter 9 and verse 13. Jacob have I
loved, Esau have I hated. In Malachi 1 quoted by Paul in
Romans 9 13, to prove that both election and reprobation ran
through the Jewish family, that there was both in that family
of Jews. All the human family, the same
thing is true. The case of Jacob and Esau, highly
significant in the scripture. It is an ironclad example. The
salvation is according to the sovereignty of God. That Isaac
and Ishmael, we can see some differences between them. But
in Jacob and Esau, they were twins. They were conceived the
same night, the same time, had the same father, had the same
mother, and yet God loved one and hated the other. Had the
same parents, same condition, and Esau was even the firstborn,
and yet Jacob I loved and Esau have I hated. And it was for
no reason. but the sovereign good pleasure
of God, because it was revealed to their mother before they were
ever born, the elder shall serve the younger. So that's a good
example, Jacob and Esau in the scripture. So here we are, man
is depraved, Arminianism greatly denies that. God is sovereign,
Arminianism suppresses that. Salvation is all of grace, Arminianism
would bring in free will. Arminianism, therefore, suppresses
the full truth of God. Now again, I want to take closing. I speak here from experience,
having been on both sides. A preacher came to our church
when I was just first pastoring. Green is a gourd, and I mean
green. Recommended to me the writings
of A.W. Pink. I purchased his book, The
Sovereignty of God. He gave a scripture for everything
he said. Every page was filled with scripture. And he cut the legs out from
under me and knocked me completely off my feet with the scripture.
And the Lord was pleased to open my heart and teach me the doctrines
of grace. And that's been a lot of years
ago, and I thank God for it to this day and pray that it bear
fruit even in days to come.