I have three passages of Scripture
I want to read to you. We're going to suspend of Hebrews 10 tonight. I have three passages of Scripture
I want to read for you. The first one is found over in
2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 8 and 9. And the second one is found in Ephesians
2.89. Then the third one is found in Acts 15. But let me just begin
our little study tonight with reading
these passages. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 89. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord nor of me, his prisoner. But
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. His own purpose and grace. His
grace was given us in Christ before the world began. Then
over in Ephesians chapter 2, a very familiar passage. Look here in verse 4. Ephesians
2 and verse 4. But God who is rich in mercy,
For His great love, wherewith He loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace,
you are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us set
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages
to come He might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace
in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace Are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves? It is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For
we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.
By grace you are saved." And over in Acts chapter 15, in just
one verse here, in verse 11. This is the great
council, the first grace council that we have in the scripture
is found here in Acts chapter 15 where all the apostles got
together to refute what the Pharisees were saying about salvation,
that it's grace plus works. We're saved by grace but not
apart from being circumcised and keeping the Law of Moses.
They had a big controversy about that. And here's the conclusion
that the Apostle Peter reached in verse 11. But we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved
even as they. I wanted to just talk to us a
little bit tonight about the word TULIP. Calvinism, the doctrines
of grace. And the reason I wanted to do
that is because I've been looking and studying this week and looking
at some history, church history, and what happened with the church
back in the 16th century and the 17th century and what a bloody
awful time it was. Netherlands was on the brink
of absolute civil war within itself. You and I, if we don't
realize the kind of governments they had back then, we can't
begin to realize that no nation ever had the government that
we've got now. And our forefathers, most of them lived under either
the rule of a king or they had their church and state was one. And if you ruled the church,
then you ruled the state. And it could get very hairy at
times. The Netherlands was on the brink
of civil war and it was over doctrine. And it happens something
like this. We wonder, you know, and I know
you probably already know where we got the acronym TULIP, T-U-L-I-P. We've heard that now for years
and what it means. I think most of us here know
what it means. And sometimes we underestimate
the importance of this because we don't use those terms very
much around here. But I cannot stress enough the
importance of Calvinism, the word tulip, and what it means.
And it means so much in our day, but it really meant a lot in
our forefathers' day. Tulip, T-U-L-I-P, of course,
tulip is total depravity. Man is totally depraved. He's
dead in trespasses and sins. U is for unconditional election.
God chose those who He would save in Christ without any consideration
of their works or even their faith or repentance. L is for
limited atonement. That the atonement of Christ
is not limited in its power, but it's limited in its purpose.
He laid down His life for the sheep. He saved His sheep by
His death. Then I is for irresistible grace. Those He elected, those He died
for, He calls them in a manner that He will not suffer them
to resist Him. He brings them to faith and repentance
in Christ. And then, of course, P is for
the perseverance of the saints. So we know that, but you know,
very few people realize where those doctrines came from as
a system. Now, as a system, we know where
they came from. Some people say, well, John Calvin
invented the doctrine of unconditional election, but he didn't. He only
preached what he found in the scripture. But he and Luther
around 1500s, Luther in the 1500s and John Calvin in the 1500s
and early 1600s, Well, no, 1503 died in 1564,
Calvin did. And Luther died in 1546, I think. But they were two of the main
ones in the Reformation. In the 14th and 1500s, all of
these people in droves were leaving the Catholic Church. And they
called it the Reformation. They were coming out. They were
leaving the doctrine of Catholicism. of works and idolatry and they
were coming out and they were discovering these truths of God's
grace in the Scriptures. And they called it reformed faith. Now I don't even like that word
myself. Somebody asked me the other day,
he said, he said, I'm glad there's a reformed Baptist preacher,
a reformed preacher there in Newcastle. And I said, brother,
I'm not a reformer. I've never had to reform my doctrine.
The gospel is thousands of years old. What would we reform about
it? But they called it that, and
that's fine. They called it reform because they reformed, I guess,
the Catholic doctrine. But anyway, they came out. John
Calvin had so much to do with it. Luther, Swingly, Beeson,
all of these guys in that day had so much to do with it. And
then Luther died. And then in 1564, Calvin died. And then the church began to
be tried as far as these Reformed doctors were concerned. They
were preaching. They were preaching unconditional
election and total depravity, the limited atonement of the
death of Christ and irresistible grace and prayer. They were preaching
all of those truths long before there was a system that we talk
about. But anyway, when they died, you
had a man by the name of Jacob Arminius. You ever heard of Arminianism? We talk about that, don't we?
Well, they get that from Jacob Arminius. He was born, I think,
just four years before Calvin died. And he was a Calvinist. Basically, he was a Calvinist.
He went to school in Geneva where Calvin lived the last few years
of his life and taught. And he believed what Calvin believed.
And he was a Dutch, and when he left Geneva and came back
to Switzerland, something happened to him. I think I know what happened
to Jacob Arminius, but I'm not for sure. And nobody is for sure,
but there was a man that he knew. His name escapes me at this time,
but he was a very popular preacher at that time, and he wrote an
article on predestination. And the supporters of this man
and those who liked him said that he was so one-sided that
he'd got out there too far. Even those who loved him said
that about him. He sort of misrepresented, the best I can tell, the doctrine
of predestination. Well, Jacob Arminius, he took
offense to that. He turned, Perkins was his name,
William Perkins, he turned on Perkins and said that he had
erred. And he wrote his own article
against Perkins saying that election was not unconditional. And he only erred in that one
doctrine is As far as we can find out, I don't know too much
about him, what I've read about him, but they're saying the last
few years people have found more of Arminius' writings. But they
said the only one thing he erred in was conditional election. He came up with conditional election.
And what he said was that you look down through time, God looked
down through time. He gave grace to every man. God
gave grace to every man. And it was up to the man to use
the grace that God gave him. And if he took advantage of it
and of his own will, believed, then God had elected him. But election was based not on
God's choice, but upon what God saw in that center. Now, we've
all heard of that, haven't we? We know some of the certain terms.
They call it telescoping. God looked down through time
and He saw what man would do and He backed up and He chose
him. Arminius himself was a very humble
man, a very learned man. And he was a pastor there in
Switzerland. He was a Dutch pastor. And then
he died in 1609. He died. And one year later, is when his followers came up
with the doctrines of what they call the remonstrance. Is that
the way you pronounce that, Larry? Well, I can't pronounce it like
that. I call it remonstrance. But it's the term that means
you're standing against something that's said or done. It's against
what's been said or done or written. That's what the word means, however
you pronounce it. It's probably a Dutch word. If
it is, no wonder we can't do it. I'm not tempted to butcher
the Dutch. I've done enough to the English,
so I won't do that. But what had happened in 1610, Jacob Arminius' followers got
together and they wrote these five points of doctrine against
what they called Calvin's teaching are grace teaching. And what
each point did was denied the doctrines of grace. Though we
didn't have the doctrines of grace then. We didn't have TULIP. We didn't know what Calvinism
was. But they were so opposed to Calvinism and the grace of
God, they came up with these five points. Conditional that
man was not dead in trespasses and sins. He was badly injured,
but he still had a spark of divinity in him. He had a will that if
he exercised, then he could be saved through the exercise of
that power of that will. The redemption of Jesus Christ
was for everybody alike, Judas as well as Peter, Moses as well
as Pharaoh. Christ died equally for all men,
and it was up to the man to take advantage of the death of Christ. Grace was not irresistible. God
gave to all men grace alike. They called it halfway grace. God met the sinner halfway and
He expected the sinner to come the other half. Then when a man
was saved on those terms that he may yet fall away. He may
lose grace and fall away. Now that's the five points that
these men in the Netherlands There was quite a few of them. Maybe 10% of the churches there
in the Netherlands got their pastors together, and they came
up with these five points. Here is where he had hit the
fan. Most of Europe had come to reform
theology. They had come to the truth of
God's grace. People were believing it. Now
here they were in the Netherlands, and these people that had followed
Jacob Arminius, they had come up with these five doctrines
that just put everybody in a tizzy. I mean, they said civil war is
on the brink. And what happened, all over Europe,
but especially there in the Netherlands, the churches got together. This
was huge. This was huge. They had 62 Dutch
delegates, 62 pastors and theologians out of the state or the country
of the Netherlands, 27 out of other nations. There were eight
other nations. Germany was in on it, England was in on it,
Switzerland was in on it, and I think maybe France and some
others. They came together for six months. They met in a room
for six months in this huge room. All the theologians had their
tables working together to do one thing, to see if the doctrine
which the Armenians had come up with were truth according
to the scriptures or if they violated scriptures. After six
months of close study of the scriptures, they came up with
the doctrine that you and I know as Tulip. And the reason they
came up with those doctrines was simply to refute the five
points of Armenianism. So that's how we got the word
Tulip. And if you study those men, one
good book I'll recommend to you, it's from Chapel Library, The
Canons of Dort. We had some back here. And if
you can get a hold of that, we need to send back to Chapel Library,
I guess, and get some of them. But that's one of the best books
I've seen explaining how we came up with this. And those men,
those men, they labored for six months in that. They came up
with these truths. Sent all the letters back out
to the churches that were so troubled over this. And the churches
rejoiced. They rejoiced when they found
out that they came up with these simple acronyms to defeat Armenian
doctors. So that's where we got Tulip.
You probably knew that or knew some of it, but you probably
knew that already. One man I was listening to this
week, he made this statement. I was listening to many statements,
but two or three I jotted down. He said this, and it brings me
to this point. He said that he did not like
Calvinism because Calvinism brought controversy into the church.
He said not only did it do it now, but it did it then. But
it didn't. It didn't. It wasn't the Calvinism,
it wasn't the doctrines of grace that brought in the controversy.
It was the works for salvation. It was the Armenian theory. And one of the reasons I read
Acts chapter 15 to you is because you see it right here in this
Grace Conference that they had here. In verses 1 and 2, look
at verses 1 and 2 here in Acts chapter 15. And certain men which
came down from Judea taught the brethren and said, except you
be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had
no small dissension and disputation, disputes with them, they determined
that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to
Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. And then they got up there in
verse 4. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received
in the church and of the apostles and elders, and they declared
all the things God had done with them. But there rose up certain
of the Pharisees which believed, they acknowledged that Christ
was where He said He was, that He died and rose again. And they
were saying that it was needful, the word there is necessary,
to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this
matter. And when there had been much
disputing, Then Peter rose up and said unto
them, and that's when he said, God chose to visit the Gentiles
through me, and that's when he made that declaration there in
verse 11 that I read to you, that through the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. So what
was it that brought the controversy in the church? It wasn't grace,
was it? It was works for salvation. Grace
was what they defended. And so when somebody says to
you that Calvinism just brought controversy into the church then
and it does now, if the truth brings controversy, then let
controversy come. But it wasn't the Calvinists
of that day that brought the controversy. It was those who
were against the grace of God. Another man said this. I heard
him say this. He said he didn't like Calvinism
because the Council of Dort, that's the council that got together
there in the Netherlands, the Council of Dort, a little town
in there in the Netherlands. Its name was Dort. That's where
they met. That's why they called it the Council of Dort. He said
the Council of Dort, the Calvinists condemned the Armenians for their
view. Well, what were they supposed
to do? What were they supposed to do?
And I thought, as he said that, I thought of this passage here,
you know, when they dismissed this meeting, you know what Peter
and the apostles did? They condemned the Pharisees
in their view. Look what he says in the same
chapter, chapter 15, and look in verse 23. And the apostles
wrote And they wrote letters by them after this matter. The apostles and elders and brethren
send greetings unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in
Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia. forasmuch as we have heard that
certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your souls, saying that you ought to be circumcised
and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment." Now
see, they did the same thing as they did in the Council of
Dort. It never hurts to rebuke error,
does it? I mean, if it's contrary to the
truth, it needs to be rebuked. Here's the question, I think,
that we need to ask ourselves. We need to ask ourselves the
same question that that council asked themselves when they sat
at their table and studied all of those doctrines. What's the
truth? What's the truth? What does the
Bible teach? When we go back beyond Calvin,
and go back beyond Luther, and beyond Knox, and we go back beyond
the Church Fathers, and we go back to Paul, what does Paul
preach? You've been teaching that to
Paul. What did Paul preach? What did Paul believe? What did
John the Apostle believe? What did the prophets believe?
What did the Lord Jesus Christ Himself preach? That's what matters,
isn't it? What is truth? And if these doctrines
are truth, then a man ought to receive them. If they're not
according to truth, I'll be the first one to reject them. But
you know if they're truth according to God's Word, they need to be
believed and defended, don't they? Believe and defend it. Here's another question that
we need to ask ourselves when we think of these blessed truths. Are they vital? Are these truths
vital? Now, Wayne taught a couple of
weeks ago out of Romans chapter 14, and he dealt with some things
in that chapter that the Puritans used to call things indifferent.
They're not vital. One believed that he could eat
meat and others said, I can't eat meat. Religious conviction
in the conscience. One could drink wine and another
couldn't. One had holy days he kept and the other didn't. But
these things aren't vital, are they? You may do them or not
do them without any danger to your soul. But when we look at
these doctrines, when we look at the doctrines that this acronym
teaches, TULIP, Are they vital? How vital is it to the salvation
of my soul that I am chosen of God in Christ to salvation? That's vital, isn't it? What
happens if I'm not chosen except the Lord has left us a seed,
a remnant, and elect people, we'd have all been His son. We'd
have all been made like unto Him. Lord, it was not that I
did choose Thee. That could never be. My heart
would still refuse You if You had not chosen me. And that's
what the Lord told His apostles, wasn't it? You've not chosen
me. I've chosen you. And that's vital. That's vital. How important is it that the
Lord Jesus Christ take my sins personally to Himself
and suffer for my sins and put my sins away? As Paul said, He
loved me and gave Himself for me. How important is that that
I believe in Him bearing my sins? That's vital, isn't it? Particular redemption is vital. I need to know it's vital that
He took my sins to Himself and put my sins away. How vital is
it that He call me and call you when we're dead in trespasses
and sins? And call us in such a way that
we cannot resist Him, that He makes us willing in the day of
His power You and I who know ourselves, that God has taught
us of ourselves, we see the deadness in us even to this day, don't
we? We believe with all our hearts, if He lets us go even to this
day and quits drawing us and wounds us to Himself, that we'll
be lost forever. It's vital that calling be effectual. It's vital to our soul's salvation.
And if it's not, if it's not, then we won't be saved. We won't
be saved. There's plenty of people that
God speaks to their conscience one way or another, and He lets
them go. And what happens to them? That
didn't happen to you, did it? Why? Irresistible grace. It's vital. And for a poor sinner,
a believing sinner, to get through this world full of sin and the
devils and make it home to the Father's house? How vital is
it that you obtain grace to continue in the faith? It's vital, isn't
it? It's vital. When I personally
consider these doctrines of grace that we sometimes describe by
the acronym TULIP, when I consider them in my own heart, They are
vital to our salvation. I don't know of a single one
of them that I would feel comfortable laying aside. Do you? Not a single
one of them. Something else concerning this,
too. That's the first thing, where
we got it. What is it where we got it? Well, we got the system
from the Council of Dort. But they got it from the Bible,
and they're Bible truths. Second thing I wanted to say
about Tula was this. I was listening to a man by the
name of Latham Flowers, and I don't know him. I listened to a lecture
that he gave for about an hour or so, and he was telling, he
was explaining, that he had been raised up in Calvinist. He raised
up a Calvinist in the Calvinist family. He'd been in it all of
his life. He looked to be around maybe
50 years old. And he told why he left Calvinism. And he said
there was five points that persuaded him that Calvinism was wrong.
And I sat there and listened to him as he gave these points. And it was something between
Calvinism, it was something between Tulip and full-blown Arminianism. Something in between. But I,
for the life of me, couldn't understand what it was. It was
as confusing to me as it could possibly be. And as he went through
each point, I kept thinking. I'm not the sharpest knife in
the drawer. I know that. But I know a little. I've never professed to any of
you to be a theologian ever. If anybody struggles sometimes
with some simple truths, it's me. But my goodness, I'm not
all that dumb. I've read a little bit. And yet
when he gave his five points that led him away from Calvinism,
I was so confused. It was in such a gray area, I
thought, what in the world are you talking about? And here is the thing about Tulip. Here is the thing about Calvinism. It's simple. You can take it to the Scriptures
and apply it to the Scriptures and find it in the Scriptures
and there's no gray areas there. When I listened to Mr. Flowers,
everything just got so murky. Everything got so uncertain. And when I went back to what
the Calvinistic doctrine is, I thought, man, how black and
white it is. How black and white. If you've got unconditional elections, Then that clears election up. If you've got unconditional election,
you cannot have conditional election. Can you? And somewhere or another
he was trying to mix them up. A man is either dead in trespasses
and sins, or he's not. There's no gray area in that,
is there? I've seen people lay on the death bed for hours and
about every two minutes they'll take a big deep breath. And you
know what that indicates? They're not dead yet. They're
almost dead, but they're not dead yet. But if a man's dead,
then he's dead. And when the Bible says we're
dead in trespass and sin, you can't go then and in turn say,
we're very injured. We're very disabled. No, we're
dead. And that's what T means, dead
in sin. And when you talk about limited
atonement, did the atonement of Jesus Christ truly redeem? Did He really lay down His life
to save the sheep? Did God see of the travail of
His soul and was satisfied on behalf of His people? Then if
it's a redemption, we can't call it a death that does not redeem.
It's either redemption or it's not. Yes, it's limited. But it's a
redemption. And when you talk about the perseverance
of the saints, and you find something between The scriptural view,
the doctrine of faith, Calvinism and Arminianism, you find something
between that? What does that mean? He either obtains grace and he makes
heaven his home or he don't. And if one true believer can
fall away and be lost, then nobody is safe. Nobody is safe then. The apostles may be suffering
in hell for all we concern. Wouldn't that be awful to think
about? I remember when I was in high school, I went to school
with two friends that turned out to be three-word Baptist
pastors, and I preached for both of them at one time. I remember
Brian Finley, you know Brian Finley, and I preached for Brian.
He was so excited when I came over to preach for him, some
folks from Donnie Bell's cross who went over there with me to
preach, and I made the statement in that message. Some of them
got up and walked out. Some people got up and walked
out. People from Brother Donnie said,
Amen, Brother. Preach it, Brother. But I made this statement. I
said, Listen, if one single child of God, one for whom Christ died,
this is the way I said it, winds up in hell at last, the devil
is going to hold him up as a trophy for all eternity. And he's going
to say, I've got one of his. And Jesus Christ is going to
hang His head in shame. Just one? Just one. And what Calvinism says and what
those men in that council of Dort were saying, no sir. No sir. God's grace is so powerful. Jesus Christ is so faithful as
an advocate. The Holy Spirit will abide all
through this life until every single solitary believer will
be received into the Father's house. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power until all the ransomed church
of God, all of them, everlast one of them, be safe to send
on. And that's what we lack about
Calvinism. That's what we lack about what
these men did there at the Council of Dort. They took all the gray
areas out of this. There's no two sides of this.
I like that part, don't you? I like it that those dear brethren,
our brothers in Christ, got together, took time out of their busy schedule,
and traveled with a mode of travel like they had. Went there to
the lowlands, and got together and came up with these blessed
truths out of the Word of God and put them together as a system
for me and for you. And these five truths stand together.
I don't know. Well, I know they realized that
when they put them in the order that they did, that they stand
together. One man called them five golden links. And we've
heard a lot of messages about that. Five golden links. And
they're strong links. But if one breaks, then none
of them is any good. But you won't break a one of
them. They stand or fall together. And that's why I read these passages
to you about grace, sovereign grace, free grace. When did Paul
tell Timothy it was given to him? Before the world. He saved
us with His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ
before the world began. Grace goes back a long way and
it goes back to you if you're in Christ. And then Paul says
we are saved by grace. Right now we are saved by grace.
And Peter said we shall be saved by grace. So grace reaches from
the beginning all the way to the end. And that is what these
men did. They magnified the grace of God
in Jesus Christ the Lord. They said we are saved by grace. That is what Tulip is about I
think. It's about clearing up the mucky places about how we're
really saved. We're saved by grace. Saved by
grace. In closing, let me give you quickly
three more things that will keep us from being confused about
this term tulip and what it teaches. One is this. And these men who
came up with these truths to repel Armenianism, here's what
they said. These doctrines are not intended
to be a comprehensive explanation of Reformed doctrine. They're not intended to be a
comprehensive explanation of Reformed doctrine. but only an
exposition on the five points of doctrine in dispute. And what they were saying there,
we've given you these five truths to combat the error of the Armenians. We're not giving you these five
truths to interpret the whole Bible by. That's what they were
saying. As much as we love the truth of Calvinism. Thus
we love TULIP and what it teaches. We can't interpret all the Bible
by that system. We just can't. It's not inconsistent
with the Bible. There's no doctrine in the Bible. There's no teaching in the Bible
that TULIP contradicts. But we know that the Scripture
teaches so much more than that system gives us, don't we? If we go to the Word of God and
we're going to take this system, TULIP, and interpret every passage
in the light of that, we're going to confuse ourselves to death
because it won't fit. It just won't fit. And this is
why you see somebody, they get a hold of this system of theology,
which is wonderful in itself, just as I've said. But what they
do then, they take that system to the Word of God, and if the
Word of God seems to contradict their system, boy, they throw
up their hands in confusion. Or if you preach anything that
seems to contradict that system, man, they get upset with you.
You're not preaching grace. You're not preaching tulip. Well,
you can't interpret Scripture. You cannot interpret all Scripture
in the light of that. And that's what these men told
us when they come up with this. Secondly, we need to remember
this, and we won't have any confusion in other areas about this. These
truths were developed into a system of theology by man, this council. And while the system itself is
true, no system of theology will save a man. We're not saved by
believing in a system of theology. We're saved by a person. And
that's so important, isn't it? It was almost immediately after
they printed TULIP and got it out to the churches, almost immediately,
they began to have to warn people, don't trust this system. This
is a system and it's a truthful system. Don't put your trust
in this system. I've talked to people that put
their trust in this system. We had a lady here in church
and her experience was that. And she told me that's what her
experience was. She went for years and she said
when she would be convicted in her mind that she may not have
a saving interest in Christ, she ran to this system. I can't
be lost because I believe this system. And she said she held
on to that until the Lord beat her out of it and saved her. I have run on to people like
this. You wouldn't believe the number of people that I've ran
on to while I've been off somewhere preaching. And they're trusted
in this system. This is all they know is this
system. And that's so sad and it's so dangerous. So our faith
is in the person, isn't it? Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
He that believeth on Him shall be saved. And thirdly and lastly
is this. The gospel can be preached without
preaching these Calvinistic terms. We have people sometimes, I've
had them here, I've had them here, and that's difficult to
preach to them. You find them everywhere. They're listening
for certain phrases. And if they don't hear those
phrases, I didn't hear total depravity, Brother Crabtree.
Did I preach total depravity? I didn't hear it. I didn't hear
irresistible grace, Brother Crabtree. The Bible says nothing about
total depravity. It says nothing about the term liberty and atonement,
does it? So the Gospel can be preached
without preaching this terminology. These brothers teach all the
time. I very seldom hear either one of them mention these terms.
Are they preaching to us the gospel? These terms weren't around. John Knox never used these terms.
Calvin himself, Luther, never used these terms. Our Lord Jesus
never used these terms. But it's the gospel. It's the
gospel. I remember one of the best messages.
The first Grace Conference I was ever at was sometime in the 70's. We went over to hear Brother
Henry Mayer. Ashland, Kentucky. I never will
forget the title to his message. The title of his message was,
That's True and So Is This. John chapter 6 and verse 37.
All the Father giveth me shall come to me, and he that cometh
to me. And he never used the Calvinistic
term. You never heard him use that
term. But boy, he preached the gospel just as clear as he could
be. The Father gave in a great multitude to Christ just like
the doctrines of grace says. And he said, it's not but they
shall come and they shall come to me. And he that comes to me. I heard another message. Some
of you may have heard this. David Pledger preached at the
conference down at Donny Bell's and he preached out of John 6.
The gospel Christ preached. And man, he preached the gospel
from there. And I talked to different people
out of there and nobody thought of Tulip, what he was preaching.
Nobody said, man, he's preaching Calvinism. Until he was finished
with his message and he made this statement, some people called
that Calvinism. He said, I call that the gospel.
And it was. So we don't have to use these
terminologies. And that's fine with me if people
don't choose to use it. Just preach the gospel. Preach
the gospel. Calvin preached and Luther preached
and those men believed. Well, I thought we'd take a break
from Hebrews and just look at those few things. I hope they'll
help to you. Let's pray.