Come with me again to Romans
9. I preached this message down in Florida last week, and I hope I can preach it tonight
and not be mean, not be arrogant, not be harsh. But I want to talk about the
absolute fallacy and criminality of free will doctrine. And I can say that because I
have been involved in it. I know what it's like. Now, there
are but two systems of religion in this world, only two, no matter
what name it goes under. It's either grace or works. There's two religious systems.
Maybe a Baptist, maybe a Presbyterian, maybe a Church of God, maybe
a Methodist. Maybe a Camelite, maybe a Catholic,
but it makes no difference. Salvation's either of grace or
of works. No middle ground. Salvation's
either all of the Lord and all of grace, or it's all of man
and all of works. There's no middle ground. None
whatsoever. And what does the Scripture say
about that? Well, look over here in Romans 11.5, and I'll show
you what it says. That's why Isaiah said, if they
speak not according to the law and the testimony, the word of
God and the testimony of God, it's because there's no light
in them. But he said here in Romans 11, 5, even so at this
present time, also there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. A remnant's what's left over when all out of everything.
And then he says this, and if by grace And this election is
rendered as if this election is according to grace, then there's
no more works. Then it's not works, no more
of works. And he said, otherwise, grace is really not grace. But
if it be of works, then it's not done with grace involved
in it anymore, no more, or else work wouldn't be work. So he
said that it's either all of grace or it's all of works. If
it's of grace, then it's not of works. If it's of works, then
it's not of grace. It's all of works. And let me
ask you a few questions now to set this message up. Is the salvation
of our souls, our eternal souls, the salvation that God saves
us, is the salvation of our souls because of what we do for God
or what God does for us? It's man's will. Let me ask you
this question. Is man's will really as free as the majority
of religion says it is? Does it really have the power
over salvation? Does it really have the power
over God? Does it really have the power
to choose salvation or reject it? Will what we call Calvinism,
or the doctrine of God's grace, lead men to sin? lead them to
a licentious nature, to a licentious way? Will it destroy the church? That's what they'll say. That
if you believe in election, if you believe in salvation and
all of grace, you believe God saves the few and passes by.
And they say, well, it'll make it to destroy the church. It'll
cause it to be cold and dead and formless. They'll say they
believe in fatalism. Is God really a monster? and
sends infants to hell the way they accuse people who believe
in the free grace of God is? When he says, Jacob hath a love,
and Esau hath a hater, does that make God a monster? Because he
chose one of them to salvation, and left the other to the damnation
of his own soul? Does that make God a monster? Look here with me in Romans 9.15. God says to Moses, Moses said,
Lord, show me your glory. Moses said, I'll show you my
glory. I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. And I'll have
compassion on whom I'll have compassion. So it's not of him
that will. It's, well, what about my will?
What about my will? Nor of him that runneth. I need
to run out here and do something for the Lord. I need to run out
and pass out some cash for Jesus. I need to run with the message.
I need to run out here and get people converted. I need to run
and get the church filled up. And look what he says. For the
scripture saith this, may unto Pharaoh, even for this purpose,
Have I raised me up that I might show my power, my authority,
my right in you? Who is the Lord that I should
obey? God said, I'm going to show you who I am, and that my
name might be declared throughout all the world, or throughout
all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and whom he will harden. He hath mercy on some in Egypt,
hardened others. And then you'll say, oh, unto
me, why doth he yet find fault? How can God find fault with me?
Who has resisted His will? If His will is going to be done,
His purpose is going to be carried out, who's resisted that will?
Name it, old man! Who are you? Who do you think
you are that replies against God? You want to stand up and
argue with God? You want to stand up and tell
God that He don't have the right? That He don't have the right
to have mercy on whom He'll have mercy? That he can harden Pharaoh
if he chooses to? That he can love Jacob if he
chooses to? He can hate Esau if he chooses
to? He can have Abraham to be the father of the many nations?
You telling me that you want to argue with God and tell Him
it's not right? If I don't, you know, how can
I be saved? I've not resisted His will. How can I not be saved?
And then he goes on to hear, But, O, who art thou, a man that
replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor, and another unto dishonor?" All right. Now, let me tell you
something, beloved. I'm going to give you a little
history lesson right here. The natural man, in his hatred for
God, and the natural man hates God. He don't hate his God, So when he's confronted with
the God of the Bible, he'll do exactly like Pharaoh did, who
is the Lord that I should obey? When they're confronted with
the God of this Bible, the first thing they'll say, that ain't
right, that ain't fair, that's not the God I know. But the natural
man in his hate for God has devised three theological systems to
get around. The absolute sovereignty of God
is salvation. and salvation being holy of the
grace of God, not by any human merit and not by any works. Let
me give you those three systems. First one's called Pelagianism,
and it's called after a man named Pelagius. He was a British monk
in the 5th century, and this is what he taught, and this is
practiced today by most people. He denied the fall. He says that
there was no such thing as man falling into sin through Adam.
that he denied the fall. He denied that sin entered this
world by one man. And he thought that the human
race, all we received from Adam, was a bad example. And that man
has in himself all that he needs to do good and be good and save
himself and he don't need no help from anybody whatsoever.
And I saw a perfect demonstration of that this morning on television
as I was watching. Some people was being taught
that they have to get off heroin, that they have the power in themselves,
they have the strength in themselves, that they have the ability in
themselves, and that all they have to do is just meditate right,
eat the right stuff, drink the right things, and they can get
off all these drugs. Don't need God's help at all. And then there's semipalatianism.
Now let me tell you what that is. Semi-Pelagianism didn't deny
the fall, but they denied the totality of the fall, the absolute
inability of man. What they say, they say that
man fell, other things fell about him, but his will. And they say
we were just injured, that we're sick, but we all got sick enough
to go to the doctor. We seek us a physician. And this
system teaches that the will of man and the will of God, they
work together. And the will of man is the dominant
factor over the will of God. Because your will, and I know
that's a fact because I'll say his name right here on this table.
Years and years ago, when God began to teach me the gospel,
a fellow named Billy Mitchell, whom I preach together a lot,
but when I began to preach the gospel, he said, I'm not preaching
the same thing Donnie Bell is preaching. He's preaching that
man's dead, but I believe that man has lost all of his ability
in the garden except his will. He lost or didn't lose the power
of his will. Everything's depraved about him,
but his will. Now, that's a semi-Pelagian.
And that's what he is. That's what he teaches. Man's
too dead, God's too powerful. God's too sovereign. Now, how
that could be. And then here's where we're at
today. I'll tell you how we get to where we got. John Wesley.
Here's my third theory. The third theological system.
John Wesley. He believed in the totality of
the fall. He believed that by one Man's
sin entered the world and death passed upon all men, and they
all sinned. But he also believed and taught this, as a result
of the atoning death of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of the
death of our Lord Jesus on the cross, that universal and sufficient
grace is given to all men And if man will cooperate with that
grace, that sufficient grace, that universal grace, God owes
it to every man to give it grace. And there's a sufficient grace
because of the death of Christ on the cross. It must be given
to all men. And if man cooperates with this
grace, which has to be given to all men, in the moment of
your opportunity, in the time you get your chance, if you'll
cooperate with that grace, you'll be saved. Now that's what's going
on. That's the majority of religion
today, that right there. So you see, that's how we come
to this place. But let me give you a few things
against the absolute fallacy, fallacy, criminality of free
will doctrine. You see, the scriptures teach
us. I'm not trying to take too long. The Scriptures teaches
us that God saw all men fallen in Adam, dead in sin, and in
pure grace chose to save some whom He willed. Is that not what
the Scripture says? Ain't that what He says? I'll
have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on
whom I'll have compassion. So then it's not of Him that
willed it. We were talking on the way out this morning and
said, if I had my will, If salvation was by my will, you know who
I'd get saved? I'd get my children saved. If salvation was in my will,
and it was by the will of man, I'd get some of you saved. I'd
get my granddaughter saved. You know, I wouldn't dare let
her be lost. I wouldn't let my father die
and go out into eternity with blasphemy on his lips. I wouldn't
have done it if I had the will. And if running would do it, if
running around telling people about Jesus, witnessing about
Jesus, and teaching them about Jesus, and sticking a Bible under
their nose would give them salvation, I'd be all over this country
sticking Bibles under their nose. Talking to them about Jesus.
But he says, it's not of him that runneth, nor of him that
willeth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now let me show you something
about this. But free will teachers, now we
know that man's dead and trespassed in this, what the Bible teaches,
by one man's sin in this world. But the free will teacher, he
teaches this, that God foresaw something in some that caused
him to save them. He looked down through time,
and when he looked down through time, he saw who would believe,
he saw who would repent, He saw who would be good moral people.
He saw people who would be intellectual. He saw all the people that would
be good. And so then he chose to save
those who he saw would have faith, who he saw would repent, who
he saw would have reasoning, who he saw would be good people.
Now, wait a minute. If that's so, Then why would
He create people who didn't have those requirements? I didn't
have any of those requirements. I didn't have faith. I didn't
have repentance. I certainly didn't have morality.
And I certainly didn't have intellect. And I wasn't a good person. So
that's what God does. He looks down through that. Now,
you know what that would make Him? To me, that would make Him
a monster. It would make Him a respect of
persons. He has to look down and see what somebody's going
to think, and it's what he'd be taking the glory for something
you're going to do anyway. He said, I saved him because
I knew what he was going to do. And oh, secondly, secondly, free
will destroys the power of the gospel. The power of the gospel,
the proclamation to sinners. And what I mean by that, instead
of us proclaiming the gospel being the power of God unto salvation,
that Christ is the one who saves sinners, we would have to go
out and look for those who have good, that are moral people.
We'd have to go out and look for those who are smart, and
we'd have to go out and look for those who, by reasoning,
could believe the gospel. And so what we'd have to do,
we'd start education, we'd start programs, and start trying to
make people good people. And then there would be no hope
for dead, old sinners like ourselves. That's why they tell you if you'll
start doing good, make a change, start living right, join the
church, be a good person, you'll be alright. That's wonderful.
But what about the sins you committed yesterday before you started
living right today? Huh? Oh, I'll tell you something. True evangelism. I remember a
fellow stood up, and this guy had a PhD. And I'll tell you,
he was doing chalk talk and puppets and everything to win children
to Jesus. But I got to preaching along these lines one time and
talking about If we can win people by giving out tracts, if we can
win people by giving our money, if we can win people to Jesus
by going out and preaching on the street corners, let's none
of us come here tonight, let's every one of us be out giving
out tracts, let's give every dime we have, let's eat bread
and water if that's what it takes to win people to Jesus. And I
got to preaching on those lines and he jumped up and he says,
are you saying that we ought not go out here And evangelize,
I'm saying, of what I'm telling you is, is salvation to the Lord,
it's not of you. And see, true evangelism, true
evangelism, true winning of souls to Christ, is based on God's
absolute sovereignty. It's not based on your morality,
me looking for somebody who can reason, somebody who's got intellectual
power, somebody who's moral, somebody who's good. We're not
looking for that. It's based on the absolute sovereignty
of God. Salvation to the Lord. You look
at all the men that God used down through the centuries. William
Carey. David Brainerd went off and preached to the Indians.
Hudson Taylor. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 17 years
old, started preaching. In about three or four years,
thousands of people were coming to hear him preach. What made
the difference? George Whitefield would stand
and preach, and thousands of people get converted. Every one
of them were Calvinists. And that's why the Lord said,
go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature.
And God has elected a people whom he'll quicken, whom he'll
give sight and a heart to believe. When Paul was getting ready to
leave Corinth, God told him to say, you stay right there. You
know why? Because I've got many people in this city. And it's
through the preaching of the gospel. When Paul got there saying,
I go around through Corinth to look for the good people, the
moral people, the smart people. No, no. He said, you go preach
to sinners. And I'll tell you, and this is
another thing about freewillism. It destroys the true concept,
the truth about how free a man's will really is. Now, let me explain
that to you. They say a man's will is free
to choose salvation or reject it, to choose God or reject it.
That's an out-and-out lie. Man's will is free and bound. What do I mean by that? Man is
like a man in prison. He's in the prison of sin. Is
that not right? He's bound by his nature. Now,
when he's in that prison cell, he can lay down if he wants to.
He can read if he wants to. He can sleep if he wants to.
He can walk around if he wants to. But he's got to operate in
the realm that he's in. And man who's born a sinner,
He was born dead in trespasses and sins, and his nature has
got to operate in that realm. Now, a man, can he stop sinning
by his will? Can he start living right by
his will? So a man's bound by his will.
He's free to do anything he wants to with his nature. He's as free
as a frog in its next belly, but he cannot get out. I remember
a preacher years and years ago that he said this, and I don't
know where he's at now. I hope he's out of the ministry.
But I do know he used to say this. He says, you know, he says,
salvation is like getting out of prison. If God gave you the
key to get out of prison, and the key is your free will, all
you've got to do is use your will and unlock that prison door
and come out. Now, wait a minute. There's three
priests that I preach in down in Louisiana. Me and Howard goes
in there and preaches all the time. If you think for a minute
that one of those fellows had a key, he wouldn't open that
door and walk out of there. Now, they can't get out of a
physical place. How are you going to get out
of a spiritual place? Do you understand what I'm saying?
You know, a man's got to be true to his character. It's necessary
for him to do what he will. And what is your will? Why are
we here tonight? God gave us a will to be here.
But you can't change your will. When men's will is most free,
it's most predictable. Do you know that? Our Lord Jesus
Christ said to Judas, what you do, do quickly. I'm going to
lead you to your will. What you do, you do quickly.
Huh? Do what you're going to do. And I tell you, sociologists
and psychologists say men are victims of their circumstances
or their environment. That's why they build all the
housing projects. That's why we have all the programs
to help educate people, lift them up by the bootstraps. And
they say their victims are the circumstances or their environment.
If we can change the circumstances and change their environment,
we'll change them. If that is right, and if that is true, why
don't all who come from the same environment turn out the same? Why don't we all come from the
same environment, turn out exactly the same? Do you know why we
don't? Because God makes men to differ.
And I tell you, grace is greater than circumstances, and grace
is greater than environment. You know what environment we
was in when God called us? Dead and trespassers and sinners.
That's the environment we was in. Death and sin. Did it hinder
Him? No. That's why he said he had
the potter pound to the clay. And let me tell you, this will
not be religion. It always, always ends up in fatalism. Always ends
up in fatalism, and I'll tell you why I know that. And you
see if I ain't telling you the truth. If God has done all He
can do, if God has done all He can do,
And you're now beyond His control. And you're beyond His power to
save because of your will. Then I tell you what, beloved,
then you're bound by chaos and there's no hope for you or anybody
else, unless things are in the sovereignty of God. If God's
done all He can do, and He can't do no more, and He won't insert
no more power, no more force, no more will, no more mercy,
But then what in the world we got to look forward to? Huh? Oh, my. And I'm going to tell
you something. Yes, we believe what will be, will be. But it's
God's will that will be. That's the difference. You know,
I don't believe what won't be, won't be. Yes, we believe that
what will be, will be, but it's God's will that's to be. And
God's will is based, here's the difference, it's based on His
infinite wisdom. The will of God in this world,
in my life and in your life, is based on His wisdom. God knows,
God in wisdom orders all things to His glory and His honor. And
it says it's based on His infinite wisdom, His power. He can carry
out His will. Can anybody say His hand or say
unto Him, what, do us now? His will has got power behind
it. He can save a man. He can keep
a man. He can bring down a nation, raise
up a nation. I tell you, there's nobody in
this world, how would you like to live in this world knowing
that God wasn't running this out for you? How would you like
to be in this country right here with the government we got and
not know God? It'd be scary. That's why I'm telling you that
the wisdom of God we know is great and is long-suffering.
That's behind His will. That's behind His power. And I'll tell you something else
about free will. Free will gives a man a religious
license to sin. You think about that a minute.
You think about that. You ever know anybody in a pre-real
religion that didn't backslide once or twice anyway? You know, a man can sin because
the Lord will always take him back. How many people have been on
altars when they were young and went back out in the world? You
see, a man can sin because the Lord will take him back. Oh,
Jimmy Swigert, you know, got caught with him And he just stood
and cried, just cried, cried, cried, Lord. And so the Lord
took it back. And I'll tell you, you teach
backsliding, and you know what men will do? They'll practice
it. Yeah, you preach salvation by
the will of man, sooner or later he'll find out. And you see,
here's the thing about it. Whenever you preach that a man
must keep himself, sooner or later he won't keep himself.
And when he don't keep himself, then he backslides. And then
when he backslides, how long is he going to backslide before
he comes back to the Lord? And Jesus will always be standing
there to take him back. But now, but listen, we fear
because of the sovereignty of God. I don't want to, grace don't
give me a license to sin, we fear because of the sovereignty
of God. You see David, now you can turn it off, but you can't
turn it back on. Just like David, when he walked
out that morning and he saw Bathsheba down there taking that bath,
he said to his servant, he said, go down there and get her and
bring her to me. Right then and there, that man, he just turned,
the grace of God, the glory of God, the will of God, the honor
of God, wasn't in his thought anymore. All he thought about
was her, and having her, and then he had her husband killed,
and all that. Now, can he turn the grace of
God back on? Do you know what happened? It was
David who comes and says, you're the man. And you know what David
said? He said, oh Lord, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.
Oh Lord, it's against you and you only that I sin. I tell you,
when we sin, we understand we sin against God. We sin against
holiness. We sin against love. We sin against
mercy. We sin against grace. We sin
against the blood and righteousness of Christ when we sin. So I'm not going to go out of
here just because I sinned and just throw out my hands and say,
well, I'm going to go out in the world and the Lord will take
me back sometime. No, no. David said, cleanse me and I
shall be cleansed. Wash me water and snow. David
understood that the love of his sin cost him and cost him jelly. But these folks in free willism,
when they start smoking again after they quit, they got to
go back to the world because they're not supposed to live
like that. Their concept of sin is all wrong
to start with. Sin is in certain things you
do. Oh my, you know that as well
as I do. We used to look at how people
acted, what they did, instead of what they believed. Oh, somebody
smoked or chewed tobacco or something like that, or went to a picture
show, or went to a ball game and hooped and hollered. You
go to a ball game, hoop and holler, you come to church and sit like
a bunch of rocks. If folks are feeling guilty about things,
sins and certain things you do, and if you do those certain things,
then naturally, you know, you've got to either renew up, rededicate,
or quit. And this is a funny thing to
me, that people know when they got saved. They can tell you
the time and the place, and then they can backslide and go back
into the world, but they can't tell you when they got lost again. That's such a funny thing to
me. But they don't know what sin is or where it comes from. I dare say that you could find
a lot of people around here, preachers included, and a lot
of people that go to a lot of churches, you start talking to
them about sin, where sin comes from, how it got into this world. And I say that 75 to 80 percent
of them wouldn't know what started in the Garden of Eden. And then you say, how can sin
be put away? I'm going to say 90% of them wouldn't be able
to point to Calvary and say, Jesus Christ put away sin by
the sacrifice of himself. They start talking about, well,
I need to go to church. I need to stop doing this. I
need to stop going here. I need to, you know, I need to,
I need to get my act together. Ain't that what they say? Do you know what sin is? Do some
of you here know what sin is? I mean, sin, there's a lot of
man-made sinners. Man-made sinners. Well, but when
God makes you a sinner, when God makes you a sinner, you're
a sinner inside and out from the top of your head to the sole
of your feet, and you just absolutely loathe it. It's you. It's not
what you're doing. It's you. It's your nature. And
only God can make you that way. And let me tell you another thing
about the free will doctrine. It's an I-I-I doctrine. It's an I-I-I doctrine. Just
here a while back, a fellow was telling me, he said, you know,
I joined a church. I said, well. He said, you know, I've only
missed twice in so many months. I love the Lord. He never once
thought, I said, yeah, I said, I'm sure I'm grateful that Christ
brought me into his church and that the Lord saved me. And he
just kept talking, he never once said anything about Christ, about
how much he loved the Lord, how faithful he was to the church,
how that he'd even go on special occasions, on meetings and all
that. All he talked about was what
he was doing. And I said, I'm sure I'm grateful for what Christ's
done for me and brought me to his church. Free will is an I, I, I doctrine.
Ours is a Christ, Christ, Christ doctrine. We talk about Christ
and His sovereign will, that He's got all power over all flesh,
that He gives eternal life to as many as God has given Him.
We talk about Christ and His sovereign mercy, that Christ
comes in mercy. When Paul said, I was injurious,
I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor, I was injurious, but I attained
mercy. And we talk about Christ and
His sovereign mercy. We talk about His holy, sinless
life. And his life, a servant, his
life as a representative, his life lived for us. We talk about
his death, and his death and what his death accomplished.
That his blood really put sin away. That his death actually
satisfied God. That his death was what was required
for God to save us. That the death of Christ put
away sin. Violent death. And we talk about
His glorious ascension. He's ascending to heaven right
now, such is the right hand of God. And I tell you something,
we talk about He's coming again. He's coming after me. He's coming
after you real soon, Ruby. Coming after you soon, Herman.
Coming after someone as soon as you can stay. He's coming
after us. One day He's coming after all of us. But he'll call my name one of
these days, and guess what? I'll answer! I'll say, here I
am, Lord! He's coming! Oh, I'm not looking
forward to it! So I was talking about Floyd
the other day, and I talked about how he was so happy, he was so
joyful, and They told him, said, we've got something to help you,
you know, make you live a little longer. He said, why in the world
would I want to do that for? This is what I've been waiting
for. Because we're talking about Christ.
What if he had said, oh, I don't want to go and meet the Lord.
I ain't done enough. I ain't prayed enough. I ain't
lived right enough. I ain't read my Bible enough. I ain't prayed
enough. I ain't went to church enough. I ain't been dedicated
enough. I ain't witnessed enough. Didn't
love my wife enough. Loved him, went off into eternity.
Didn't want to go because of that. You know why he wanted
to go? And why every believer from time to eternity wanted
to go? Because of what Christ did for
them. They want to go see Him and be
with Him. And when we get there, there'll
be no abduction there. It won't be nothing like that.
You know what they'll say? Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord,
but unto thine, and be glory and honor. It was you who washed
us from our sins in your own blood. It was you who was saying,
worthy is the lamb that was slain, and has redeemed us to God out
of every tribe, kindred, nation, and tongue. Oh my, we want to
see Christ and we want self out of the way. Oh, let me tell you just a little
bit about, there's two things about men. Either they're subjective
in their religion or objective in their religion. Subjective
is concerned with self. Our free will, our works, our
doings, our emotions. But objectivism is concerned
with something outside themselves. And Christ is whom we look to.
Huh? We look outside ourselves. We
look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't even bring our faith
to Him. We just bring ourselves to Him. We come to Him because
we believe in Him, but we don't even bring our faith as a recommendation
to Him. We look to Him because we're
concerned with the God of all grace. We're concerned with the
Father of mercy. And, oh beloved, we look to Christ
because our completion and our acceptance does not lay upon
our shoulders, but lays on the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I was saved 2,000 years ago before
I knew anything about it. That's why I have to look outside
myself. Jesus Christ bore our sins 2,000 years ago on that
cross. So what do I have to look to
me for? If my sins were put away 2,000 years ago, Christ bore
my punishment 2,000 years ago, Christ was buried for my sins
2,000 years ago, and He rose to heaven and sat down to write
the name of God 2,000 years ago with my name on His heart, why
in the world would I ever look to myself for anything when everything
was done? So I have to look out for myself
because everything was done. And that's why the gospel comes,
and it comes and tells you what was done for you 2,000 years
ago. Don't give you anything to do. That's why it's called
the gospel. There's good news in that. Ain't
that right? Oh, man, I hope I'll get through
this. And free will does this. It teaches
that men make themselves to differ. It teaches that men make themselves
to differ. They think that their repentance
and their faith is better, more sincere, more earnest than others,
and so that's why they get saved when they all go to an altar.
It's that why some people get up and they're not saved is because
they didn't repent enough, didn't believe enough, wasn't sincere
enough, wasn't earnest enough. So then their repentance and
their faith and their earnestness makes themselves distinct, to
differ. And then, I'll tell you something
else that they do. It makes distinctions in Christians. Now, what do I
mean by that? They talk about good Christians,
and then there's really good Christians, holy Christians,
and then there's Christians who live better than others, then
there's dedicated Christians, there's carnal Christians, and
then there's natural Christians. The Bible just calls us all Christians,
all believers. No difference in us whatsoever.
Has anybody here holier than anybody else? Anybody here more
dedicated than anybody else? That's why we believe, like Paul
said, that a man loses his right to brag and boast. He said, I
know that in me that is in my flesh, but it's no good thing.
He said, I count everything that I believe, everything that I
hope in, everything that I trusted in before Christ made himself
known to me as dumb, as garbage. And I now want to win Christ,
be found in Christ, not having my righteousness, but the righteousness
of God. And oh, here's something that
you really need to understand. If I have to finish here, I want
you to get this one point right here. Free will gives no hope
for infants, for idiots, and for imbeciles. Free will doctrine
gives no hope for any infants, for any idiots, or any imbeciles. I'm going to prove it to you.
They'll say children are born innocent. This is what they teach.
Children are born innocent. Then they reach an age of accountability. Now how many times have you heard
about people reaching an age of accountability? When they
reach an age of accountability, and then, that's when they become
sinners. So then everybody who reaches
the age of accountability, then they all fall into sin. So how
many falls do you have in the lifetime of this world? Instead
of one fall, everybody when they reach an age of accountability,
that's when they fall into sin. Now what is that age of accountability?
Most people say around Twelve. But there's no scripture for
that. And logically, logically, it
doesn't lead to the salvation of children. And I'll tell you
why. Because children don't have the
ability to choose. They don't have the ability to
exercise their free will. So if they can't choose, and
they can't believe, and they can't repent, And they ain't reached accountability
yet, what's going to happen to them? And why pray for your children? They aren't sinners until they
reach the age of accountability. Why pray for them? Why pray for
them? You know, remember when Hannah
went off and prayed for God to even give her a child? And she
said, Lord, you give me a child and I'll bring him back and give
him to you. She even prayed to God to give her a child. And
I'll tell you what, we pray for infants because we know they
are sinners. We pray, people pray for the
people who know Christ and know the gospel, know the grace of
God. They start praying for their children before they're born.
You know why they do? Because they know what their
children are. That they're shaped in iniquity, conceived in sin,
and they come from their loins, and because of God's sovereignty,
and if they know that if God don't have mercy on their children,
they'll be like anybody else's, die without any hope. You take little Aubrey there.
I hope I don't embarrass the OBS station. You take little
Aubrey there. If God don't have her in His
electing grace, what hope does she have? She can't exercise her free will.
She can't make choices. She can't believe. What would
happen to her according to the free will doctrine? Now, we believe
all See, we pray for our infants, our
babies, because we know they're sinners. As much as I love our
children and you love yours, they come from us, so that makes
them sinners. And we believe all who die, we
believe all infants who die are saved not because they're innocent,
but because of the death of Christ and the character of God. and
they'll go to glory on the blood and righteousness of Christ the
same way we do. Christ's righteousness is given
to them and imputed to them just like we were chosen in Christ
for the foundation of the world they were to. I believe that's
according to the character of God. And oh, I tell you, that's probably
a good place to... Well, let me give you just another
one here real quick. Y'all getting tired? I don't
want you to. I don't want to wear you out. Free willism presents a false
god to men. And this is how they do it. They'll
say, God can't save you unless you let Him. He has no hands
but your hands, no feet but your feet. And they'll stand and tell
you that God loves everybody. He loves you. And yet, that love
that He has for you is powerless to save you unless you let Him. And they'll say this now, God's
made His move, now you make a move. You make a move and God will
meet you halfway. That makes God a checker player. Whoever makes the last move wins. They present a false love, they
present a false power, they present a false will, and the death of
Christ is presented falsely. Because it absolutely has no
power to do anything for anybody apart from man's will, and man's
power, and man's choice. I know, as a funeral, some kids
got killed up in Kentucky, and I remember watching this. And
they said this, those kids got killed, they said, this funeral
here, this is not God's will. If it wasn't God's will, whose
was it? Do you know what they're saying is that God was cruel
for these children to die, for these young people to die? And
that God could have stopped this? Now, what comfort is their mother
and daddy going to get? What they're going to think is,
well, God, what kind of God is it? It would take my wife, my
daughter, my son. And so they turn around and they
hold God responsible for everything that happens in their life. Because
somebody says this is not the will of God. Kenneth Copeland's wife, which
women are not supposed to preach, but she does anyway. Kenneth
Copeland's wife said, God is like the devil. He can't do anything
for you unless you allow him to. She equates God and the devil
to be the same. Preacher down in Louisiana stood
up and said, God is at the mercy of your sovereign will. He comes
here and he won't go any further. And God cannot do anything but
wait and wish before your free, sovereign will. And Noel Smith,
and Don Fortner knew this fellow and studied under him one time
out in Springfield, Missouri. Noel Smith, a Baptist professor.
He said this, Hell is a ghastly monument to God's failure to
save man. Hell is a monument, a ghastly
monument to God's failure to save man. And it's also a horrible doctrine
because it teaches that man is saved by his works, saved by
his doings, that man becomes righteous by his own acts. If man does his works and lives
a good life, dedicated life, to his church regularly, praise
regularly, that he can be righteous by his own acts. Well, I tell
you something, beloved, we weren't lost by our works. I never done
one work in order to be lost. Did you do a work to be lost?
Born lost. I never done anything to be lost.
And I ain't going to do anything to be saved. God saves His people
before they ever were. Chose us in Christ before the
foundation of the world. Well, what can we do? Well, by
God's blessed grace, we can preach the gospel. When we get an opportunity,
preach the gospel. Tell men the gospel. And don't
do it defensively. We aren't wrong. They are. And
don't be apologetic. Never apologize for God. Never apologize for his grace.
Never apologize for his election. Never apologize for his purpose.
Never apologize that he saves whom he will, and that he gets
all the glory and salvation, that he'll have mercy. Don't
apologize for God. Don't ever be ashamed and apologize
for God and what God's taught you. And then when you get an
opportunity to talk to somebody, do it with joy. Do it with joy
and authority, because we've got lots to be happy about, and
we've got the Scriptures on our side. The Bible's on our side. And then secondly, press men. Tell men to come to Christ. Come
to Christ. Come to where the gospel's at.
Come to where the gospel's at. Huh? And I hope I wasn't mean. I hope I wasn't harsh. I hope
that we learned some things here. And I know these things are true
because I've been involved in them. Been saved from them. I know what it's like. And I
certainly don't want to go back. I don't want to go back to anything
that depends on me in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I'm
thankful, bless the Lord in the depths of my soul, that somebody
crossed my path with the gospel one day and told me that salvation
is all of Christ, all of His righteousness, and God owed my
heart to believe that. Ain't you grateful for that?