Does God PREDESTINE Some People to HELL!? | Live Free with Josh Howerton

For a Calvinist, the mystery is in the past, for an Arminian, the mystery is in the future. What if I am not elect? What if God didn't choose me? Let me just read the Bible, John 6, 37. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. There are questions that both sides have a tough time answering because there is scripture in support of both, and there is logic in support of both, and they're really tough verses. Well, hey, Live Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world, so if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend, we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform, and it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time, and so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Orozco, and today I'm excited because I'm here with the one and only Chad G. Paul C. The Epistle Missile, Paul Cunningham. What is up, my man? I have not heard Epistle Missile in forever. I like it, bro. I feel like there's a very small but very vocal minority that that's their favorite nickname, so anytime I'm out in public and they see me, they call me the Epistle Missile. Well, when you're going to come in with a chart or a graph, bro, this is an Epistle Missile episode. And I've got some. I've got some today. I'm excited. Hey, where is Pastor Josh? Oh, man. Pastor Josh usually obviously is with us, but we record this on Thursday afternoons, and we had something called Vision Night where we got to give a preview of where we believe God is taking us over the next several years as a church. And so, he really had to focus on that. If you missed that night, by the way, we will be revealing more details in the coming months, but we've got some really cool and exciting things. But Pastor Josh needed to focus on that and prep for that. So, you and I get to talk some really easy things today. You know, like does God predestine people to hell? You know, he leaves and then we get to cover that by ourselves. So, today we're going to go 2 Timothy chapter 2, right? Yeah.

Okay. And what does it mean to be like a soldier, farmer, and athlete? We're going to do like a little bit of a deep dive there. But like you said, Paul, we're going to talk about predestination. It's one of those easy topics to talk about. So easy. Never device overheated. Yeah. Everybody feels so much better after. Yep. Right. Everybody feels like hugging each other. That's exactly right. Not that we're going to do that in this case, obviously, but you know. It's like this conversation was like predestined to happen. Bro, I will say this. Or are we choosing to do it? People don't know this, but it's true. Like we originally thought, hey, what if we did an episode on obviously predestination and then like something changed and then we're like, okay, we're not going to go there. We're going to go somewhere different because of the text. And then like literally like hours before we're recording this, we decided that for several circumstances, we're going to talk about this, which honestly, if that's not proof for predestination, I don't know. I was going to say we decided, or we could also say it was meant to be. Oh, so we didn't really decide, right? Because it was decided for us? Yes. Both. Oh, interesting. We'll get there. I'm getting too far ahead of us. We're getting excited. So, we're going to go predestination. We're going to specifically talk about Calvinism versus Arminianism. You're going to label them a little bit differently. We might have a little bit of a debate between Paul and I. We shall see. It should be fun. People don't know this. We have a lot of debates, you and me, on a regular. They're really fun. If we could ever set up hidden cameras, I feel like that could be its own TV show. At some point, we need to. Because usually, a lot of times we're just disagreeing for fun. Like we actually agree with each other, but we're just doing it just to banter and have fun. Sometimes we are legitimately disagreeing. Yes, there are those two. And we learn from each other. At least I do. I don't know about you. We're going to go frequently shouted questions on predestination and hell that we have not answered yet on the pod. What? What was that? I just laughed because I felt bad because you said that, and then I didn't say anything in response, and it made it feel like I was like... I know what you believe, bro. That was not a backhanded conflict. No, you literally said, yes, that's correct. I learned so much from you, Carlos. You learned from me. I learned from you. I know that is not what I said at all. That's okay, Paul. You're not saying it. I learned so much from you, Carlos. I'll say it for you. It's okay.

I love you. I love you. Hey, man, I got no shame. I'm here to learn from you, bro. And so one person is getting more out of this conversation than the other. I'm just going to put it that way. Oh, goodness me. Here we go. We're going to be answering frequently shouted questions like, if God chooses who is saved, check this one out, does that mean that God chooses who goes to hell? Why would we even want to preach or share our faith if people are already, quote unquote, elect? And then what about those passages in the Bible that seem to say otherwise? So, bro, it's going to be good. Hey, we just wrapped week number three. Three, I believe, yeah. Pastor Mike did a great job here in just a second. We're going to talk about that. But man, I want to take a second. This is something that's a big deal for our church. We are getting ready to launch Root It, which is our 10-week discipleship program here. It's a big deal. So if you're part of Lake Point, September 8th is when we're launching a bunch of rooted groups, and this is basically an opportunity for you. We'll say this often, discipleship happens in relationships. And if you are a part of our church and are not yet plugged into a rooted group, you need to, and so to, we can help you. This is an in-person only experience. If you are outside of the DFW area, we want to encourage you to find a local church, get plugged in. This is a big deal. You were not meant to follow Jesus in isolation. So if that's you and you're in the area, come hang out, text the word rooted to 20411, and we'd love to help you find a group for you to be in for September 8th. Also, if you are part of the Lifer Nation and ever come, want to come and take a selfie with Pastor Paul, cause it's literally all he does these days, like I'm literally in the lobby and he's just like taking selfies, like with everybody. I was going to say not by myself. That would be really awkward. He's like, he's like signing like people's like, you know, forearms and

their Bibles. Do you sign any Bibles, bro? No, I don't. It's okay. It's okay. He's too humble for it. No, it's just weird. It's like, I think the last time someone did it, they asked me to do it. I said, all right, sure. I was like, I think like the table of contents or like the front thing. And I was like, I think I said this book changed my life and then signed my name or something like that. I don't know. It just feels weird. I don't know how those two relate, but I'm already throwing labels already. You're a very humble guy. Okay. But no, anyways. Okay. So if you ever want to get a selfie with Shaggy Posse, you can, you can come and visit us at any part of our, uh, any, any of our locations. We'd love to meet you in person. Am I omnipresent? Like multiple campuses, right? Also, man, we got some merch that we want to make sure we give away every single week we do a giveaway, go on YouTube or Spotify. We'd love to hook you up, uh, comment hat to, uh, in the comments right now on Spotify and YouTube, bro. Are you okay? People again, what I love is before we get into the conversation a bit, this

is actually probably the most accurate picture of what we're like when we're together off, off cameras, we just paint her back and forth like this. So sometimes even though we miss Pastor Josh, sometimes when it's just you and me, it's just like, I feel we snap into our mode or we're just going back and forth. Maybe it's fun. It's fun. We're getting started here. But now, oh yeah. So like, yeah. Comment hat or is that what you're saying? That's right. And then also to let people know, cause we may have forgotten this is we did a thing where they could name the bear skull. That's right. It's over there. It's over there. I think it's somewhere over there and we're going to wait. Cause we were feeling like we probably shouldn't choose the name. We asked people to comment on the different names. Probably shouldn't choose that without Pastor Josh. Ever killed a bear? I have not. I have. I have a shot of bear one time. You did? Yeah. I was in Washington state. You kill animals? Well, yes, I do.

All kinds of animals. Deer and elk and yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Once I was thinking, I wish I'd have known we were talking about this. I would have like gotten a picture and like the bear claw and other stuff. It was, it was a decent, good size. It was a decent, good size. That looks like a small bear. Yeah, it kind of does look like a small bear. I hope, hope that wasn't a cub. Josh would probably, Pastor Josh would probably not appreciate that. But anyways, so yeah. So we will decide that next week when he is back. That's right. We'll decide it. And if you want some merch, so you don't have to actually wait for the giveaway. You can just go to livefree.shop or text the word HATTO20411. And you can literally, we have a merch shop available for you. Um, thank you for subscribing and liking everybody. And also to download the LakePoint app to get the daily Bible reading plan. Plus the weekly sermon, plus an early release of this live free episode. You can do that by texting the word HATTO20411. Uh, or go to Apple or Google play store. Hey, uh, did I have anything else? Oh yeah. I was going to, I was actually going to ask you, we were talking beforehand. Hey, have you been like reading anything interesting lately? You've been diving into anything. I know you're a big reader.

You've been reading anything interesting. Well, okay, Paul. So this is, this is true. I've literally read the Bible my whole life. And I literally just found about this, uh, hidden historical detail in the book of Jonah. Okay. In the story of Jonah. So check this out. So if you've ever read the story of Jonah, have you ever wondered like, this is such a bizarre story. Like if you think about it, about what the plot is, basically here's a prophet. He's like a bad prophet, basically probably one of the worst prophets in the Bible, if not the worst one. And God calls him and he's like, no, I'm not going to do that. He goes the opposite direction. A fish swallows him. And then at some point the fish spits him out and then he's preaching repentance. And then this really rebellious pagan city just repents out of the blue. And so that's basically the whole story. It's a small, it's a short book. Uh, but there's something more happening behind the scenes that a lot of people have no idea. And this is really interesting. This is going to be, this is going to blow your mind. So Nineveh is actually the capital of the Assyrian empire. So if you know a little bit about the culture, Mesopotamia back in the day, it would be a polytheistic culture, which means that they would have a lot of different gods, liturgy, pagan gods that they would worship. And there was this one particular God, this is historical.

You can look it up called Alanis. And this one particular. God was believed to eventually at some point would come out of the water to provide divine wisdom and teach humans the foundations of civilization. So do you want to see a photo of a visual representation of what these guys believe this pagan God looked like? This is a photo right here. So that right there is the visual depiction of this pagan God, Oannes. And again, it looks like it's a man with a fish on top, or you could say a man coming out of a fish. Now, I want you to imagine, Paul, if you are, if you were a pagan fisherman at the time and you're kind of out there doing your thing at the coast of the Mediterranean and all of a sudden you see this fish literally come out and there's this man coming out of the mouth of the fish and he's out there preaching repentance in the name of this deity, in the name of God. And all of a sudden people are listening to this. Some people think that when some people have would have seen this person, this preacher come out of this fish, they would have been like, man, actually that would have associated with their pagan God. But at some point they would have realized, hey, actually, this is not one of these little G gods. This is the real God. That's right. Revealing himself, giving us wisdom and telling us that if we don't repent, he will destroy us in judgment. And so that's amazing. One, that's what I want to show you. But two, there's more. If you keep thinking about this story, why would God even choose Jonah in the first place? If he knew, and this ties into our conversation, if he knew that Jonah was such a bad prophet and he was going to rebel and run, why would he do that? And here's why. Because Jonah may have been running from God, but he was never outside of the sovereignty of God. And so from the very beginning, God in his sovereignty, in his grace, he picked Jonah to be his messenger, be his prophet. And he knew Jonah was going to rebel and go the opposite direction.

In fact, he knew that at some point Jonah was going to meet these pagan sailors who did not know the real God. And eventually, because of the encounter with Jonah and because of everything that happened, eventually they would worship God. God knew from the very beginning that Jonah was going to be swallowed by a fish and he was going to spend three days and three nights inside the fish, which would be a prophetic sign for the Messiah years later. Jesus said, I am the son of man that just like Jonah, just like Jonah spent three days and three nights in the fish, I'm going to spend three days and three nights in the tomb, in the grave. Jonah came out of the fish. Jesus came out of the grave. God knew that's exactly what's going to happen. In fact, the whole process of him rebelling and running away from God and eventually repenting and obeying God, God knew he was going to use that testimony, that story, that experience. And eventually he was going to use all of that for the people to hear the gospel or hear the message of repentance and repent. And so let me just apply it to you and me. Romans chapter eight, verse 28 says, and we know that God works all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. And so here's the point with God, no detail is ever wasted with God. No moment is accidental. God is good. He is sovereign and he is always working. Oh man, I love it. It's the best. I was like with these things, always the image that's coming to my head for a while, for years now on this, and this includes, by the way, when our life is chaos because of things that are happening to us or around us that we had no choice over, but also even when sometimes we make a mess of our life and the chaos is because of us, I like to think of it as this weaver making this master tapestry. A tapestry is literally just this woven, a hand woven thing with all these different threads. And it's a beautiful piece of art, but when they're making it, they make it either from the

top down or bottom up typically. And if you zoomed in to where they're actually weaving the threads together, it looks like chaos. You're talking about hundreds and thousands of threads going in different directions and it looks like nothing is going to bring this all together. But yet if you zoom out, you realize that there is a master craftsman, a master artist who is weaving every thread just where he wants it to be and making something beautiful out of the chaos. And so it's just a reminder to people, you know, about your sovereignty in Jonah's case, out of his obedience, God was able to still take that after Jonah repented and then still do something incredible out of it. I hope that people understand that whether it's because of things happening to you or things you've done, God is sovereign because that he is able to take our worst decisions or the worst moments of our life and use them for our good and his glory. It's just such a beautiful thing, man. That's great. That's incredible. Incredible details, man. That's great news. So good. Well, hey, Pastor, and we're going to keep talking about this, Pastor Mike did a phenomenal job this weekend. Good old Mike, bro. Man, he's the best. I love Mike. And man, lots of wisdom every time. And if you have not checked out the sermon, you can just go on YouTube and find it. Basically, he shared about this particular segment in Second Timothy where Paul uses this imagery of Christian faithfulness. And it's basically, he talks about three things.

One, a soldier who endures suffering and stays focused on the mission. Two, an athlete who lives with discipline and integrity without taking shortcuts. And three, a farmer who grinds and works hard and patiently waits for the harvest. And so I love the. definition that Pastor Mike gave about spiritual grit, which is, he said it was grace plus reliance equals internal toughness, grace plus reliance on God equals internal toughness, and ultimately, again, his point was that the Christian life is not about proving how strong you can be, ultimately it is about depending on how strong Jesus is, how strong Christ is, and you find that strength in Him. And so for that reason, if you're a Christian, man, we refuse to quit running the race that God has set before us because we have reasons to trust in Him who gives us that grace, who sustains us, who strengthens us, and then when it becomes difficult or whenever we feel like, and I'm not really seeing results, we keep going, we don't quit. And so what I want to ask you, Paul, man, give me, what's interesting is in verse seven, after Paul tells Timothy, hey, Timothy, who is a younger disciple, hey, you need to be like a soldier, like an athlete and like a farmer, he says, think about these things. So that's what we're going to do right now. Paul, give me more thoughts on what does that even mean? Oh, man. Well, I love the idea of, yeah, think on these things. It's almost like he's telling Timothy, hey man, slow down and like marinate in this. A little pet peeve of mine is when people say marinate on this. Sorry, I'm just going to put it out there. This is a very niche thing. You did not, you did not, because you don't marinate on something, you actually marinate in it, but again, that's just, that's my little weird pet peeve that I have, but yeah, it's like, slow down, like the idea of a— Don't get too mad, bro.

Whatever. The idea, the idea of marinating, sorry, is that usually like, you, man, you want to sit in it and— It's like a cooking term? Yeah, like when you cook a steak or like if you're ever smoking meat, you like marinate it to kind of get more flavor into it, but it takes a while. You've got to sit in it for a while. So that's, that's the idea. Man, if you'll sit in and soak it up, there's more there. And one of the things that stuck out to me from, from these three images was the idea of the athlete in training. You know, it says that the idea of the athlete that competes according to the rules. Now, some people would maybe think, oh, that means like, you know, they don't cheat. Like for example, if you were playing in the Superbowl and deflated the ball, so it was easier to grip when it was coat outside, Tom Brady. And, uh, sorry, I, I, it's over. And I actually kind of like Tom more now that he's retired, but still, I'm just saying it's, I, I hated the Patriots at one point in my life. Dude, you know, I've been one time to an actual professional football game. No way. And it was when Tom Brady played here in the Dallas area. Oh, man. Go ahead. Go ahead. Ah, come on. Pretty proud of that. That's awesome. That's awesome.

So anyway, so that's really not what actually is talking about in this passage. So when it talks about competing, according to the rules in the, in, in competitive games at this time, especially in the Olympics at this time, every athlete before they would compete would have to stand before Zeus and swear that they had spent 10 months of intentional training preparing for that. So it wasn't enough just to show up and try. It wasn't enough simply to show up and say, I'm going to try my hardest. You had to swear, be like, Hey, these games are about to be really intense. And you got to swear that you have been training. Cause there's a difference between training and trying. It's a big difference. Um, you and I right now could go try to run, um, an ultra marathon. You and I could right now go and try to bench press 500 pounds. Not happening. Well, maybe you could do the 500. I know you're, you're a big, you're a big fitness guy, but I'm just saying, I mean, we did see you in action one time in the arm wrestling competition. Okay. What do you mean that one time somebody, okay, go ahead. Are you saying speaking of not competing according to the rules? Is that, is that the accusation that you just gave? No, I will not do that accusation. I've heard some people say that. I will, uh, you let them be your defenders. You don't need to defend it, man. Someone may have got, or may not have gotten a headstart when you arm wrestled Pastor Josh. Anyways. Anyways. So where was I at?

I lost my whole train of thought right there. You, you need to train. There's a difference between training and trying. You and I could go try to do those things right now. And we wouldn't succeed because we're not the kind of people who are able right now to run an ultra marathon or able to bench press 500 pounds or pick any other kind of things and said, the idea of training is it is usually a repeated rhythms that you're engaging in that enables you to become the kind of person who can do that. So right now, if you and I tried to bench press, let's just not say 500. That's still, I'd say 300 pounds. You may be able to, no, I can't, I could maybe get close to it in terms of a one rib, but probably not. But Hey, if I actually developed a plan and a regimen and some rhythms of, Hey, I'm going to work out so many times a week and I'm going to have a certain strategy so that over time I can gain strength, I'm eventually be going to become the kind of person who can do that. Here's where I'm going with this. In my experience, the reason that so many Christians don't live the life that God wants for them and they want for themselves is because it's not because they're not trying, it's because they're not training. That's good, man. So many Christians I know try to live the life that God wants for them. But they're not training to do it. What's the difference? And really, I believe it's all about the word that I said earlier. It's about rhythms. In my experience, the life that you want to live lives on the other side of rhythms and relationships you need to have. Rhythms and relationships.

Yeah. Rhythms and relationships you need to have. That's good. That I believe that, I'll say that again, the life you want to live lives on the other side of the rhythms and relationships you need to have. When we're talking about the Christian life, sometimes people call these the spiritual disciplines, things like getting in the Word of God and prayer, regularly attending corporate worship. Relationships are what we talked about a week or two ago in Pastor Josh about the need for a band of brothers and sisters. In my experience, that that is the primary way that God uses to train us to become the men and women that we need to be. But just like an Olympic athlete, that's hard work. It takes commitment, it takes rhythms, it takes consistency. But the more you do it, the more you can become the kind of person God created and saved you to be. And so if I was going to give encouragement to our listeners is this, man, if you've simply been trying to live the Christian life, if you've been simply trying to do the right things, stop that. Instead, adopt the right rhythms in your life and get the right relationships in your life. And over time, it may not happen right away, again, it takes time, but it will happen. And one thing that we do here at Lake Point to help people is rooted. We do rooted, that's one of the, in rooted, we teach people the rhythms of a walk with God and we get them into a relationship with each other. So, man, that's not something that people have jumped in. Great thing to jump into in the future. And if nothing else, if you can't get it in time or maybe wherever you're listening to, you don't have rooted, man, get into your church, get into community. And then also just ask some of the people there, like, hey, how do I study the word? How do I prayer? How do I mean, how do I pray? Do those things and you'll become the kind of person that God created and saved you to be. Man, I love that. This is probably one of my favorite illustrations that, or I guess imagery, the pictures that Paul uses to encourage Timothy as a young disciple, because some people think, you know, when you look at an athlete today, you know, obviously, one, you have to acknowledge an athlete lives a different lifestyle. Yes. Like when you look at, especially at the top athletes that you have, you have to, you can't live like a normal person when you're a top athlete. Like I was researching this week. So LeBron James, some people report whom you hate. Some people do not hate him. Okay.

He's just not the number one player of all time. That's fine. That's true. That's true. So LeBron James, whom Paul hates, some reports say he spends, he spends one to $1.5 million per year on his body. Now, I don't know if that's true. I don't know if somebody counted, but the point is he, I'm sure he spent something on his body. This is trainers, recovery, nutrition, and it makes sense because he's an athlete. Yes. And so he gets to got to take care of himself and he's not just spending money. He's literally, he's got a routine. He's got a rhythm. You have to spend time in the gym, literally hours and hours and hours. And there's a reason he is who he is for that reason. Kobe Bryant was famous for, it was one of my favorite all time players. He was famous for starting his daily training at 4am every single morning. Love it. Tom Brady, whom you dislike as well, was known for his nutrition, like just being super strict, hydration, conditioning, training. Michael Phelps, again, super known for like thousands and thousands of additional calories. He needs it. Michael Jordan, relentless in his goals and his focus, obsessive focus. And so again, these athletes do what 99.9% of normal people just won't do. And you know, in the Christian life, then that's what, that's what a Christian is called to do. That's not for super Christians. Nope. That's every disciple. Hey, focus, maintain intentionality in your rhythms. You have a greater mission. These guys are not doing these things because they're just kind of, this is just what they do. This is like, they have a greater mission.

They endure pain. They, they, they push through. And you know, some people today, when it comes to the Christian life will be asking questions like, well, yeah, is it a sin to do this? Is it a, you know, do I have to go to church? Do I have to do these? And again, like when you look at the life of all these top athletes, they're not asking, well, is it wrong for me to eat pizza every day? Like, they're not asking those questions. They're saying, man, I got a, I got a greater mission. That's right. And so I don't really care if it's wrong for me to eat pizza or not, man, what do I need to do to get to where I want to get to? That's good. To get to the next level. And so I think the same thing applies for the Christian life. That's so, so good, man. So again, that's just an example, like just encourage people. Like what you and I just did was like, we just slowed down, thought a little bit more on that. And so like, even like sometimes when people like tune in to us or Pastor Josh, like, man, how did you get that? And I just want to lean in and tell people, like, do you know how like we get this stuff that we just talked about or any other things we do? It goes back to what you're encouraging people to do. Like, man, whether it's you talking about your Bible knowledge or man being better, like better, deeper in prayer, anything, it takes time, intentionality, and discipline. That like the people that other people look up to in the Christian life are not people that are mass produced in some factory somewhere and they just come out super spiritual or whatever. Man, it just takes time and it takes intentionality, it takes a plan and it takes the discipline to stay consistent on it. And so, man, if you're out there and you're wanting to go deeper in Christ and deep in your relationship with him, just adopt these things we've been talking about. And you won't get there in one day, but you will get there one day. That's where the farmer illustration comes in as well, because again, it's this idea of. Like, hey, it's faithfulness during seasons, even when you don't seem to see results. That's good. It's a farmer knows, hey, there is a season to plant and there's a season for harvest.

And so this is, again, a great encouragement. We live in a culture that wants everything now. We want quick results, quick hacks, and that's just not how it works. That's right. It's easy to forget that when you're reading and then we can, by the way, we can now think on another verse here in a minute into a very fun topic that we'll get into that we previewed earlier. But before we get there, it's sometimes easy to forget like with the Apostle Paul, he literally, like when we're reading his letters, it's been decades since he first came to know Christ. And so we're seeing the fruit of decades of labor, yes, in his missionary efforts, but also just laboring and getting to know his God better. One of my favorite things, I'll go ahead and give a spoiler before we get there in 2 Timothy. One of my favorite things in 2 Timothy is at the end when he's asking for these people to visit, and we talked about some of this last week about different people to come and see him. He says, hey, bring me a cloak because he's cold, but he also says, bring me scrolls and above all the parchments. And one of the big theories that is out there of what he's asking for are pieces of scripture, little fragments or maybe a little leaflet of scripture,

which is interesting because he's written now his last letter, 2 Timothy is his last letter he's ever gonna write. And so his ministry is in a sense done. He says, I'm being poured out like a drink offering. He knows he's gonna die. Why do you want scripture? And it goes back to something he said all the way back in Philippians, which he at one point said, I want to know Christ. And when he said that in Philippians, he'd already known him again for over 20 or 25 years. So part he knew Christ in that more than almost any of us ever will, probably more than any of us ever will in this lifetime, he knew him, but he wanted more. And I think that was his heart till his dying day. Till his dying day, he's like, I wanna encounter God in scripture as much as I can. So bring me those into my dying breath, I wanna encounter God in his word. And so again, just to encourage people, like man, when we read Paul, the way he became what we read is because of that consistent faithfulness of showing up and wanting to experience more of that God had for him. Well, so this is so helpful to me even like, man, I gotta remind myself constantly, hey, and if you're listening right now, this is for you.

So hey, soldier, you focus on the mission, you're under the authority of a commander and we're in the middle of a war, so don't get distracted. Athlete, hey, you have been called to live a life of discipline. And so don't cut corners, keep going, keep running, it's painful, yep, that's part of growth, keep running. And then number three, farmer, work hard, keep at it. Even when it seems like you're not seeing results, keep being faithful, don't quit before the harvest, the harvest is coming. That's Galatians chapter six, verse nine, which by the way, we don't have time for this, but this verse for me, it's just like, man, seasons where I feel like I'm not seeing results and God, you called me to do this. And this is embarrassing and I'm not seeing anything. Hey, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. That's good. And so man, that's a great reminder. All right, you ready to get to the real fun one for today? I am, man, so I got the Bible here, I'm gonna read it and then we're gonna jump from that passage to talk about predestination, you wanna do that? Yeah, because again, just setting the table for people is Paul said in here, man, think on these things. That's right. And even that's, by the way, a lot of people use this verse

to talk about Christian meditation. It's Eastern meditation, the idea of like more of like, a lot of people think about like saying mm or something like that. That's about emptying your mind. That's what you do every day. No, I do not, it's about emptying your mind. Christian meditation is about filling your mind. That's good. And specifically about filling your mind with God's word. So he's saying here, hey, keep thinking of what I said and like bring it to mind and think about it. So in our passage, we just spent some time thinking about those three analogies. But there's another thing in this text that a lot of people do think about and it can trip people up. Would you read that verse for us? Or it can bless them. It can bless them if they do it the right way. Exactly. And our goal is to help you do it the right way and read it the right way. That's right. And understand the right way. So 2 Timothy chapter two, verse eight to 10. This is Paul again, speaking to young Timothy, young disciple, hey, remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel for which I am suffering

bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure everything, listen, for the sake of the elect, that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Okay. So we're gonna talk about predestination, election, Calvinism and Arminianism. Let me give you a quick story, Paul. Well, hey, Live Free Nation. If you're ready to go deeper in your faith and build strong biblical community, Rooted is your next step. Rooted is our 10 week discipleship experience designed to help you grow in your relationship with God, understand your purpose and build meaningful relationships with other believers. And so here's something that you need to know. Rooted is an in-person experience only. It's not available online because so much of what makes Rooted powerful happens when you're sitting around a table, having conversations, praying together and growing alongside others. So if you live in the DFW area, Dallas Fort Worth area, we'd love for you to come be a part of our Rooted experience at one of our Lake Point campuses. And so if you are ready to take that next step, just text the word Rooted to 20411 to learn more and get connected. And now let's go back to the podcast.

So I grew up in Assemblies of God in the church. Did you know that? I thought you, so you might, you know, you've got more of a diverse background than you, you always make fun. So I thought you were Catholic. I initially, yeah. You were born and raised like baptized as a baby and so Catholic. But eventually, eventually long-term I ended up, full-on Pentecostal, full-on Assemblies of God, charismatic Pentecostal church. Dude, you've had a journey, man. Bro, I do. So I, you know, this is where, honestly, this is where I was serving in church as a young high school, middle school, high schooler, plugged in a small group. And God used, you know, the Assemblies of God to shape me and bless me in many ways. I graduated high school, moved to Michigan, and I went to Calvin University out of all places, out of the providence of God and the sovereignty of God, where does the Calvin come from? Literally named after John Calvin. So went from Assemblies of God, Pentecostal church to a very, very, very reformed area and university. And to be honest, I never heard of this idea of predestination, but this way. And part of me, when I, you know, started reading theology and learning theology and reformed in the reform area, part of me, I was challenged because I'm like, what, like, I've never heard this before. I have all these questions. And then another part of me, bro, I was intrigued. I was like, I'm drawn to this and I'm passionate. I'm hungry to learn. What does that mean? What is, what is Paul saying?

When you look at every single part of the Bible, which is by the way, everywhere in the Bible, it's not just one particular spot, this whole idea of election, predestination, it's all being chosen. It's all over the Bible. So here's what I want to do. I want to talk about this. It's interesting in scripture, here's what you see. Paul uses the term election, predestination, chosen by God before the foundation of the world around 23 times in his letters in the New Testament alone. Jesus constantly says, I chose you. I chose you. I chose you around 10 times and around seven to eight times, he talks about those who have been quote elect or chosen. So combined, Jesus speaks about this around 15 times. So it's a Bible word. That's a good word. This is not a Calvinist word. By the way, I'm going to start calling you a Roman Pentecalvinist. Oh boy. Just because of your very unique story, but I love it. I love all the different experiences you've had. But yeah, to your point, even like we'll get into this here, maybe even a little bit, because maybe it'd be good to slow down in a minute and kind of set the table of like, what does this mean when it says the elect and how do we all get into it, but part of it, I just want to go say why we're talking about this is because it's in the Bible. That's right. It's because, man, if we are people who love God's word and we read God's word, we're going to have to wrestle with what's in God's word. And let me also just help people understand like right now, there's some

things that are in the Bible that are tough to understand, and there's things like that are like consequences of the Bible theologically that are tough to get our head around, whether it's this or things like the Trinity and other stuff. And I think the flinch of some people is, well, I don't really get that. And I don't really care and I can't fully know it. So I'm not going to worry about it all or study about it all. Okay. Imagine if that worked with your spouse. Like for me, imagine if I said, like, I'll ask you, Carlos, am I ever going to fully understand my wife? Never. Heck no. Heck no, I will never understand her. By the way, it's true of her with me too. Hey, we try. I, we try. We pursue understanding. That's important. I'm going to get to that. So like, I'm never going to fully understand her. But what if I went to Amy and said, you know what, babe, there's parts of you I just don't get, and I don't think I'm ever going to get, so I'm just not even going to try to understand you. How do you think that would go for me? Not great. And yet that's the approach we take with God. When we find things in his word that are hard to understand, or maybe hard to swallow, where it's like, yeah, a lot of us are flinches, I just forget about it. It's not important. I'm like, man, like, no, like God wants to be known for who he is.

He wants to be, he wants his world to be known for how he's actually created to function for us as well. And so, man, it matters. It matters. Now, are there going to be some things we completely understand? No, because we're not God. But while we may not be able to understand God fully, we can understand him truly. And so because of that, we should dive into things like this. Now, it may be good for me to kind of slow down and even explain to people like what this word elect means, maybe what the debate is over. Please do. We have a couple of views on it as well. And then we can talk about a little bit more of, again, like, why does this matter? Because we, because it does matter in addition to what I just laid out. It does matter for a few other reasons. But yeah, so the word elect. The word elect literally just means chosen. The original word in the Greek language that Paul was writing in, it just means chosen. So it says, I endure everything for the sake of the chosen. Now, what does that mean? Because that can throw people off. It's like, well, wait a second, God chose me. Does that mean I not have a choice? Or I thought, I do have choices. I do have freedom. How does this all go together? And there's a bunch of different viewpoints,

but it really comes down to two primary ones, what's called unconditional election or unconditional choosing, and then conditional election, conditional choosing. So we actually got a nice little visual up on the screen to kind of really juxtapose these. There are a lot of other theological issues and a lot of other things that we probably won't even get into today. I'm gonna try to keep this as simple as possible to help people understand the difference between these two viewpoints. So you have what's called unconditional election. It's often associated with Calvism. There was a theologian and a pastor called John Calvin, and it was in the time of the Protestant Reformation. And this is often associated with him. The main idea is that I choose God because God first chose me. God first chose me before the foundation of the world, before anything was created. He chose that I would have faith in him and I would be saved. And because he chose me, eventually I did come to faith in him. And not because he saw anything in me good or bad, not because he saw that I would choose him, but he actually is the one who created faith in me because he chose me. So you're saying God chose you to be saved.

Exactly, God chose me to be saved. Exactly, so I choose God because God first chose me. You get this in passages like Ephesians 1, 4-5, the idea of God chose us before the foundation of the world. John 6, 44, Jesus, again, it's not just the Apostle Paul and it's not John Calvin. Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. Then you get Romans 9, which we'll dive into later in this, but all of chapter nine is a really big deal for this view. So again, there's unconditional election or unconditional choosing, meaning that God does not choose us based on anything he sees in us. That's why it's unconditional. He simply chooses us and because of that, we then choose him. Then there's conditional election, often associated with Arminianism. There's a guy named Jacobus Arminius, who in response to Calvin and Calvinist views, he disagrees with them. And he says, no, no, no, no, God doesn't predestine those who would believe and those who would not. He doesn't choose people and then they choose him. Instead, he looks ahead and he sees, because God has foreknowledge, he sees what they're going to choose. And so then God chooses me because I choose him.

He would see, God looks ahead and because he's outside of time. So it's not even, I don't want to say accurate to say he looks ahead because he just simply is outside of time. For the lack of better words, because we're humans, he looks and he looks ahead and he sees who's going to choose him and who's going to reject him. And those that choose him, he then chooses them. So instead, where it's unconditional election, I choose God because God first chose me. And conditional election is conditional because he chooses you based on the condition of whether or not you're going to choose him. Also known as foreknowledge. Foreknowledge, exactly. He knew before you were going to choose him, therefore he chose you. Exactly, so for the sake of words and kind of having similar stuff, I kind of put, if God chooses me because I choose him, an Arminian would say, well, yes, but it's because he looked ahead. He looked ahead. So in a sense, he still did it before I existed, but still he did it on the condition of faith. They would point to 1 Peter 1, 1 through 2, where it talks about how God does predestine, but based it says on foreknowledge. Similar Romans 8.

Oh, it says the word foreknowledge. Yeah, Romans 8, 29, is that where you kind of have what's called often the golden chain. For those God foreknew, he also predestined. So an Arminian would say, hey, see, foreknowledge comes first. And then predestination. Also a big one, and this sounds simple, but this is actually a really big deal, and I think it's helpful if you're out there and you're a Calvinist to remember this. John 3, 16 says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. So for a person who's more of a conditional election person, they're like, hey, it just seems unloving that God would choose who's gonna go to heaven, but because of that, he wouldn't then choose everyone. That just seems unloving for God to be that way. And so a big thing for these people is God's character, because it just doesn't seem a loving God would do unconditional election. So those are the differences between the two views. There's a bunch of other things that we gotta get into, but does that make sense, Carlos? It makes sense, and so I come from, I was raised in the tradition of conditional election in the Assemblies of God, obviously. So again, it's this idea, that's what I grew up being taught from scripture. And then, you know, obviously when I came here,

and here, I mean, the U.S., and learned Reformed theology, I was taught unconditional, or I started reading about unconditional election. So where are you now? I am, I'm a Bible guy. Oh, what a, what a, what a comment, what a joke. No, it's not, it's not. No, I definitely lean unconditional. election. So you lean, so you're not like, cuz we'll get into this in a little bit. There's also what people call the five points of Calvinism and you're like, my guess is you're like, dude I don't even like the term Calvinist. You're like, I don't even want to do that. You're like, hey, I just, yeah. No, I don't lean. I am. I'm conditioned to election. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. If you have to give me those two terms, that's what I, that's what I am. But you probably don't prefer the label is what you're saying. I don't, I don't love these labels because, uh, it makes it seem like you're committed to a system instead of the Bible. You're putting on the Calvinist jersey or the Armenian jersey and I don't want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you, you do. So, uh, so Paul, tell me why are you a Calvinist? Why do you assume? Uh, I'm not assuming. I know it. Oh, goodness. Well, hey, um, let me see how much. So, like, you know, you're a Calvinist. Yes. Well, if you put a label on it, if you put a label on it, yes. Okay. Go ahead. Oh, wow. Shots fired. Okay. We're already, we're already going there. Uh, no, man. And again, when people were listening to this, Carlos and I love each other. We, we agreed beforehand. We're gonna do a little bit more banter. Partly because what we're trying to model, by the way, I'll go ahead and say it, is we're trying to model, even though he's gonna play devil's advocate a bit, of how we can talk about this. You're calling Armenians a devil? No, I'm not. I'm saying you're gonna play devil's advocate. See, look at this. This is what I'm talking about. Anyways, now, uh, we're doing this to show like, Hey, we can disagree, but it doesn't mean we have to divide. And it doesn't mean we have to dislike each other. Like we can, we're trying to model more loving, graceful, like conversations around this, but yeah. Um, yes I am. But here's what I would tell people, um, a little bit of a story on me and how I came to this. Like I went back and forth for years. So I would be more in what's often called the Armenian camp or the idea of conditional election, the idea of, often people say, Oh, free will, like God chose me, but only because he saw that I would choose him. I was in that camp. And then I was over in the other camp for a season and back and forth. And it was because I would see good scripture for both sides. We'll get into this. And I would hear good arguments for both sides that were hard for both sides to respond to. Um, experientially, I would see both. And what I mean by that is, is like, I would hear people who are very big into free will and Armenian and the idea of like, no, God chooses us because we choose him. But then when I would hear them pray, they would pray things like, God, would you just change this person's heart and save them? I'm like, Whoa, wait a second. He can't pray that. Like, you know, we do though. Everybody does. And so I went back and forth. And so probably in my mid twenties, I became pretty firm in what I, I mean, what I believe, very firm in what I believe. That being said, what I love about the journey God had me on is it, it has filled me with a lot of grace for both sides. Um, a lot of understanding where both sides are coming from. And so for me, while I do have very strong convictions, I also understand where people who disagree with me are coming from. And if anything, I've just become a very big advocate of, Hey, these are things that we can passionately disagree on. It shouldn't divide us because there's things that we can both agree on and we should both do together, which we'll get here in just a moment. I know one thing that people were wondering though, when they hear that and they hear both of our perspectives, they're like, well, wait a second. Does that mean that this is like points like official stance? No, it's not. We do not have an official stance on this as a church. We've got people on our staff and on our leadership that are more on the unconditional election side. We've got some that are in the conditional election side, some that are Calvinist, some that are Minions. Man, that's one of the beautiful things I love here is again, we can lock arms and lock hands and say, Hey, we're going to unite around the things that should unite us and we're going to pursue those things together. And Hey, these are things that we can have great conversations about, but they don't have to distract us or divide us. If somebody's listening right now and be like, Oh man, is this like one of those like super geeky theological kind of conversations? Well, here's why it matters. Multiple reasons. One, because the Bible matters. That's why. And this is a matter, we're talking about salvation. We're trying to, we have a faith that is seeking understanding of the God that we love. And so it matters because it's in the Bible and that's why it's important. Two, it also, there's implications to what you believe about it, about who God is and his character and how he operates. And when you look at scripture and you understand how he is and how he operates and what his character is, it just helps you get to know who God is. And so that's another reason. And then there's other implications too, honestly, like how you live your life. Oh yeah. And this can really trip people up. Like I had, I had an intern when I was working at one church who came to me and he hadn't slept in days because, because again, these are Bible verses and he was reading the Bible and he encountered some of these verses we've already even been talking about. And most of his family weren't saved. If not all of them. And he was just like, Paul, I, if, if the predestination thing is true, then they could be like destined for hell and there's nothing I can do. But hey, if there are many of this and thing is true, then it's like, man, I'm not doing enough and I'm not saying enough. And then it's all on me. And he literally lost sleep. So part of what we want to help people do in this is because this really can trip people up is we want to help people think through it. And then also we want to help people because this can also be really divisive. That's another reason we want to talk about this. We want to try to help model in this conversation how you can disagree, but at the same time, you don't have to let it divide you.

There you go. You can disagree, but not divide. So, let me do this. We're Bible people. Yep. We want to read the Bible. Yep. So, this is why, Paul, if I'm honest, I don't love some of these labels, like Calvinism, Arminianism, again, because how about we just read the Bible, and then we accept what the Bible says. That's good. Let me share six things every Christian should believe about predestination, because you brought it up, and it's one of those, you know, people get a little nervous around this word. Number one, and by the way, feel free to add whatever, and by the way, I have a meme for each one of these points, almost all of them, so let me just give the point, and then we'll show the meme, and if you're on just audio only, you can jump on YouTube and Spotify and check it out. So, here's the first point about predestination that every Christian should believe. Number one, it's in the Bible. No way around it. There's no way around it. Let me show you this first meme to illustrate that. It says, when an Arminian sees the word predestined in scripture, and he goes like, oh, don't be that guy. Thanks, Patrick Stewart. Thank you. Don't be that guy. So, predestination, pre, it just means decide or determine beforehand. Destination means like an outcome.

So, predestination means basically someone has pre-decided or determined a specific outcome. You can't ignore that the Bible uses this word. This is a Bible word. Again, Paul uses the word over and over again, around 23 times. Jesus uses the word. He says, I chose you like 10 times, and he says, he talks about the elect or the chosen like seven to eight more times, so a total of 15 times. These are Bible words, Ephesians chapter one, you mentioned it, Paul. Even as he chose us in him, listen when, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless. You've been chosen for this. Before him in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will. You cannot say, oh, well, I don't believe in predestination. You can't say that because it's literally right there in the book. And by the way, in that Ephesians one, which is such a beautiful passage, people should go and read it. It talks about the benefits of salvation, election, the idea of God chose. That word is he elected before and predestined. It's a good thing in that passage. It's a great thing. It's not a bad thing. The whole point is he's saying, hey, because God did this, this is all that's available to you. It's a good thing. And that's the point. And we'll talk about it in a second. Any thoughts on that? No, no, keep going. Okay, so number two, it does not eliminate human responsibility.

Absolutely not. I mean, election is mentioned 30 times in the Bible. Oh, it must mean free will. I think that's actually Jacobus Arminius. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that's him. So predestination, what we just said is true, does not eliminate human responsibility. So here's the point. Scripture teaches two things at the same time. On one hand, it teaches, hey, whoever believes in him will be saved. Whoever puts his faith in Jesus Christ, you will be saved. If anybody runs towards Jesus, you find salvation. And so anybody may come to Christ, that's the invitation. On the other hand, it also says that God's sovereignty chooses and predestined us according to his will. So that's also true. So what a lot of people will do is they'll pin this verse against that verse and they say, well, this verse says this, and then the other verse says that. Listen, we don't do that. We don't grab one verse in the Bible and then pin it against the other. We don't grab Paul and pin it against James. Again, we don't grab Jesus' words and pin it against y'all. We just don't do that. We receive the word of God as is. And so again, the Bible teaches that we are responsible for our decisions. That's right. And this, I'd say, either side that people land on in this, both now and then after they listen to us, you have to hold these intentions on whatever side you land on. God is fully sovereign and we are fully responsible. And we'll get to this because it's literally the next point.

I want to show people that this isn't just pinning Jesus' words against Paul. You see this idea side by side in Scripture. So I actually have some examples to show people literally that you see these side by side and it doesn't give an explanation of how it works. We just see that it is there and you cannot deny it. So let's go to some of the verses that we see in terms of God's sovereignty and responsibility. So if you're watching this on YouTube or any of the places we have videos, the things that are in yellow are the places where you see more of an emphasis on human responsibility, on human choice. The things that are in red are where we see that it is God's sovereignty and His choice. So this is from the book of Genesis, Joseph said to his brothers, so his brothers were mad at Joseph when he was younger because he was kind of a cocky dude. And then they sell him into slavery. He spends over the next decade of his life in slavery and in prison. I'm just going to go on the record and say that's probably a sinful thing that they did to human traffic someone. Not okay. Not okay. It's a sin. Okay. So, but then they have this confrontation at the end of Genesis and here's what happens. Joseph said to his brothers, come near to me, please. And they came near and he said, I am your brother, Joseph. Now we go to yellow, whom you sold into Egypt. They decided to do it. irresponsible for it. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, now we go into red, for God sent me before you to preserve life." I've actually got another slide so we can see more of it. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Did they sell him into

Egypt, or did God send him there? Yes. Yes. Side by side. All right, let's do another one, because this is a big one, because we may even have to come back to this passage when we're talking about some of these hard questions you're going to give me here in a little bit. So this is where the apostles are praying in Acts chapter 4. And when they're praying, they said, for truly in this city there were gathered against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod, Pontius Pilate, don't go to the next slide yet, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. And it's a context. He's basically saying, hey, these guys gathered together, and they conspired against Jesus, and they put him to death. Was that a sin? Yes. It was the most evil thing in human history, in fact. And throughout the book of Acts, you know what they do? They go to those people and say, you put the author of life to death. He resurrected, so you should kind of repent of that. That's the Paul Cunningham translation kind of thing. So they are holding them responsible for their decisions. Now let's see what happens. Go to the next slide. For truly in this city, they gathered together, and it says the same thing, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. There's the word again. So wait a second. Did they commit the most evil sin in human history and do what they wanted to do, or did they do what God wanted them to do? Yes. Side by side. Both are there. And here's the thing. This is our next point. It's a mystery. It's not something we're gonna be able to explain on this side of heaven or even on the other side of heaven, because we're not God. It's there. These things are not mysteries that were solved. They're things that we simply hold intention and believe at the same time. You said it. Number three, it is ultimately a mystery. How does that work? It's a mystery. Let me show you the meme. There are no contradictions in Calvinism if you just call them mysteries. Oh, I can't wait to show some of that in Arminianism. I can't wait. I'm raring to go, bro. There's mysteries on that side. Keep going, bro. Romans chapter 11, verse 33 to 34. This is Paul speaking. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? That's the apostle Paul saying, who knows, man? There's so much that we don't know. Hey, we should not be surprised that there are some things in the Bible that you and I cannot comprehend completely because it's God who we're talking about. And so our response, what we don't do is we don't just reject the verses that disagrees with our theology or our theological framework. We receive what is in the

Bible. And if the Bible says that, again, God is sovereign and he chooses. And in some ways, somehow that we do not fully understand, we have full responsibility. Both things are true. I remember, I'll make this brief. I remember when I was in an IMAX 3D movie one time, and it did this like 30 second really detailed explanation of how what I was about to see worked. And I just remember at one point thinking, I don't care to figure out the mystery of how it works. I just kind of care that it works. Now, again, I'm not saying what we just, I'm not trying to counter what we said earlier, which is, man, you should want to know about it. What we're more saying is, hey, there's a level to where we're never gonna be able to fully understand it. It doesn't mean that we can't then live our lives. We can't, so. Number four, it is not worth dividing over. So there are first tier issues that we believe, Trinity, resurrection, salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Is the Bible true? These are things we don't discuss. We defend. We don't debate these things. We defend these things. And then there's, that's first tier issues. Then there's secondary issues. Things that are what I believe is Romans 14 calling disputable matters. Things that we can disagree on these, but we don't have to divide over these things. And so here's a watch out, by the way, here's the meme for this one. This is John Calvin. If you can't afford seminary, pick a fight with a Calvinist and get lectures for free. That's funny. It's unfortunately true. You know what, I was going to ask you, you know why it's funny? Because it's true. Because it's a hundred percent true. Because it's true. And I will say this, man. I'll own that from my side. I want to, so let me give you an example of a time that I got it very wrong. When I first started learning about reformed theology, bro, I loved it so much. I got so into it. I started reading a whole bunch of books and just like geeky, deep, thick theological books on reformed theology, five points of Calvinism. And I got so, classic college experience. I got so passionate about debating some of these things. I found myself talking about it all the time. And there's a point where I'm going to give you one example. I was having a conversation with a friend and I'm, you know, we're kind of arguing back and forth a little bit.

He says, Oh, that's, there's no way. And I'm just kind of showing her, here's scripture, scripture, scripture, trying to get her. And, uh, and then she starts crying and I'm like, oh, like, oh, this is, uh, I'm, I'm hurting her. And, uh, you know, and so, uh, that was, that was a, that was a good wake up call for me because I'm like, man, um, this is not the point. No, the point is not to, to grab something that is so precious in scripture and true and use it to hurt people or win arguments or destroy somebody, which tends to happen for whatever reason tends to happen. And so, man, I've had, uh, I've had multiple times where I had to repent. I've asked people for forgiveness multiple times and saying, going back to me, like, you know what, um, I'm sorry, because I was just trying to win an argument and, uh, that superseded my Christian responsibility to love you. That's exactly. And so that's a watch out. Yeah. Uh, we are not here to, you know, it's not worth dividing over. We're not here to fight and win. That's not the point. If ever you are in a conversation where it feels like it's hurting more than helping, something went off. Yeah. Good. What's next? Uh, number five, it is deeply encouraging. Yes. Uh, here's the meme. Calvinist is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he was predestined to. That's exact. That's a funny joke.

Uh, the point number five is, man, it's supposed to be encouraging. Literally the doctrine of election is not ultimately about God choosing some and not others. It is the fact that the Bible says that in some sense, nobody chose God and in His mercy and despite our rebellion, God, because He's so loving, He still saves sinners like you and me. Yeah. That's the whole point. Yeah. Uh, that you, that's grace. Like you have been chosen by Him, not because you deserve it. Um, you have been chosen to be adopted as a son and a daughter. You have been chosen to belong to the family of God. You have been chosen for glorious purpose on this earth. You have been chosen so that your life literally gives glory to God. That's the highest purpose ever. And so some people would say, well, that's not fair that God chose some and not others. Um, it is not fair that God chose you and me. It's just, it's not, it's not fair. That's why it's called grace. Yeah. We don't want fair. We want grace. And that's what God offers us. Um, and this reality should produce in us, not pride because I know better, but humility and, uh, gratitude, confidence, and assurance that man, it is not because of my own effort. It is ultimately because of God's mercy that I'm here. Good.

Number six, it fuels evangelism. Yes, it does. Uh, which would be probably we're answering some of the objections here. Yes. Um, the, when you look at scripture, the guy who spoke the most about predestination is the same guy who was the most passionate about evangelizing people. That's the apostle Paul. Jesus encouraged Paul to keep, there's a part in scripture where Jesus tells Paul, Hey, uh, I know this is really tough for you. Keep going because where you're going, there are people that are not saved yet and I will save them. Yeah. He says when he's in Corinth, I have many in the city. We know that's not because he'd seen a huge revival because actually the story at the beginning of Corinth is that he wasn't seeing a lot of fruit, but yet it says that when he says that Paul's reaction isn't, well, then if you have many people in the city, I guess I'm just going somewhere else. Instead it's he stays there and he labors a little longer. He labors longer. He fights harder. He fuels evangelism. Yeah. He's empowered. Yeah. And so, man, uh, I love this too from multiple, from one, if you are every Christian is called to share their faith, by the way, um, yes, this is great news. It is not up to your brilliant capacity to persuade somebody to trust in Jesus for them to be saved. It is up to the power of God.

You can try to change somebody's mind. Only God can change their heart. And so that's great news, man. Go, go, go tell them. Yeah. Go, go to your friend. Let me, we can go ahead and I can, we can jump in on this one. Then we can jump into some of the other objections or as we call them frequently shouted questions, not asked, shouted questions on this topic, it'll be fun. You're about to grill me. I just see it in your face. You're just like excited. You're about to try to just drill me with something. It's going to be so great. Um, but before we get that, like, let me dispel one notion. Whenever I teach on this, I like to try to get rid of a lot of stereotypes and I'm not going to go through all the stereotypes to get rid of, but what I do is, is like, well, Oh, well, Hey, if this is true, then what's the, there's no point in evangelism in it or destroy it. And that's not true. In fact, what I love to do, um, to show this is I like to put a picture of different Calvinists and Arminians that are famous throughout history, specifically preachers and movement leaders throughout history. And so I've actually, I've got actually got a slide for us. Um, and I don't have labels on them, by the way. I'll just give you some of the names. I'm the top left. You got a guy named Jonathan Edwards or one of the primary preachers in the first great awakening.

I mean, literally just percentage wise. Um, like I think it was between 25 and 30 something percent of people who came to faith in America at that time, not just through him, but in a large part, he did lead it and it's just incredible. Then the amount of people that came to faith going to the bottom left though, you got a guy named Finney. Finney was in the second great awakening. Millions people can trace their salvation. either through his ministry or eventually because of the fruit of his ministry in generations to come. Top, you got Lemuel Haynes, who was actually the first African-American ordained minister. He was a Puritan and just saw incredible things through his ministry. You got Votie Bauckham on the bottom. This guy, unfortunately, he passed away over the past year, preached to tens of thousands. I preached the gospel to tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. Absolute legend. I believe he played football at the University of Georgia. He looks like it. He's a big dude, but yeah, just incredible preacher, incredibly used by God, saw tons of people get saved through his ministry. To his right, we got this little guy named Charles Haddon Spurgeon, arguably the first megachurch pastor ever. They had to go to a massive theater to hold all the people that his ministry was reaching. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people preached all the time. Insane. You got in the top right, John Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, just went all over the place. You can trace literally the salvation of millions of people through the Methodist denomination. I know they've gone a little astray recently, but in the early days, it was amazing. Even there's some great Methodists today, but literally because of this man. In the bottom, I got Miguel Nunez, who is in Latin America. You know him? Look at you, bro. Do you know him? Yeah. I'm not personally, but I was surprised you put him in there. Awesome. So again, all these guys have been greatly used. So here's my question. Based on the description I just gave, who's the Calvinist and who's the Arminian? Not based

on what you know, just based on what I said. Oh, I have no idea. Yeah. And that's the point. None of them are. So you got Jonathan Edwards is a Calvinist, Finney is an Arminian, Bauckham is a Calvinist, Haines is a Calvinist, Spurgeon is a Calvinist, Nunez is a Calvinist, and then John Wesley is an Arminian. I put more Calvinists in there to make a point. Nunez is a Calvinist. Nunez is for sure Calvinist. I put more Calvinists in there to make a point. Is that right? Like, hey guys, at the end of the day, a couple of things. Number one, if you do this right, everybody should be passionate about evangelism because Jesus Christ commanded it. Yeah, man. And number two, that was the reason I say this is, this is something that I really shouldn't know where you stand unless we're talking about it. That when I look at you from afar, I should honestly be confused. I should be like, dude, they're out there just passionately sharing the gospel with people, they must be an Arminian. But then when I hear how you pray and you're talking about, oh God, would you change these people's hearts and suddenly do more, oh, they must be a Calvinist. I should be confused looking at you from afar. So I would encourage you wherever side of this you stand on, make it your go to almost make people confused about where you stand, about how you live your life because you're keeping the tensions of scripture in place. All right. All this being said, you ready to fire away at me? Before I do, one more thing on that point. Here's also why this probably hits a little closer to home for a lot of people. If you have somebody that you love that they don't know Jesus and you're like, man, but they're so stubborn and they hate God. They're so far away. Why this is encouraging is because Paul's own conversion is the clearest example of somebody who was completely opposed to the cause of Christ. He's literally persecuting Christians and yet God's like, nope, I'm going to get you. And he does. And so in his sovereignty, God stops Paul, literally wherever he's going, he stops and said, hey, now you're mine. Yeah.

But I don't want to. You're mine. Yeah. Literally, he did not want to. His heart was not choosing God at that moment. And God's like, I choose you. And the same is true for the people that we know that are far from God, family members, prodigal sons. If God can save Paul, he can save anybody. That's right. Ephesians 2 says that apart from Christ, we're dead in sin. Hey, Carlos, when was the last time you made a really compelling argument to a dead person to convince them to come to life? Doesn't work. No. Your only hope, if you wanted to raise someone physically from the dead, is that the God who can raise the dead would raise them. It's the same truth spiritually. And again, you may not agree with my standpoint now that I've laid it out there. My point is, even if you're more many in perspective, my guess is you probably pray like I just said. And so again, no matter where you're at, we should be people who share the gospel with people and keep the tensions that scripture keeps in place. Let's not separate from, let's not separate what scripture keeps together. All right. Let's rapid fire these. We're getting close here. Okay. So, frequently shouted questions on predestination and hell. I might suspend my reformed beliefs in this moment and play the Arminian for the sake of this conversation. You ready for that, Paul? Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. All right. So Paul, you're a Calvinist. So you're saying God chooses people to go to heaven. Does that mean that you believe that God chooses people to go to hell? Because by default, if God chooses some and not all, then does that mean that some people are chosen for hell from the foundation of the world? That true? That's what you believe, right? That's a tough one. Okay. And this, again, I think this is one of the biggest thing that Arminians struggle with. And if you're a Calvinist, you shouldn't make light of that. Because if you're an Arminian, you're struggling with this. You're thinking, number one, how does this not make God a monster? No,

I don't believe it does. I do want to give a word here before we end, if you just can't overcome that of what I think you should do. But then the other thing is, your mind just goes to, this isn't just abstract theory. We got family members and friends that may not be believers, and this is hard. This is people that maybe we believe that they never met Christ, and then they passed, and what happened? So if you're listening to this and you're coming from a Calvinist perspective, don't be an idiot and just immediately mock them and fire off an easy answer to a really tough question. Understand where people are coming from. And so again, part of what I'm going to do, and I'm just being honest, is I'm going to almost pretend the cameras aren't on us and like you and I were just hanging out and we'll just treat it like, hey man, here's what I would do with you if you were just hanging out and other people couldn't imagine just that we're doing that together. Yeah, man, a few things here. One is, as I would say, just a few caveats before I go to some scripture to kind of show how I rest with this, what I think scripture says about this. One is, I have to be most committed to what scripture says, not to what my feelings say. So what decides it is not whether I like what the Bible says, but what does the Bible say? And then I have to go to what the Bible says and say, okay, man, whether or not I like it initially, man, what does the clear reading of scripture seem to say? And I have to pre-commit that I'm going to go wherever it seems that scripture leads me. So that's just one thing I would say to everybody is make that pre-commitment. Another caveat is this, is that as someone who believes in unconditional election, I also believe that there is not a single person in hell that does not deserve to be there and does not want to be there. I don't believe that the way this works is that God drags people kicking and screaming

into hell. I believe that ultimately a lot of people have this misconception that Calvinists don't believe in free will. That's not true. We do. We have a different definition, which is often why, frankly, why Arminians and Calvinists talk past each other. We have a different definition. An Arminian has a different definition of God's sovereignty than a Calvinist. And a Calvinist has a different definition of free will than Arminian. So oftentimes we talk past each other. So Calvin's perspective would mean you are free if you choose what you would want to choose. So if I want to pick up this cup and I picked it up, then I was free to do that. If someone made me do something I didn't want to do, then I'm not free. And so what we would believe is that, man, ultimately there's no one who's going to go to hell who did not want to be there. There's no one who's going to go to hell who said, man, I really wanted to believe in Jesus, but I just wasn't allowed to. No one's going to do that. Now someone's going to fire back, which may watch the video here in a minute and say, that doesn't make sense. And I get that, but we'll get to that in a minute. So that's just a few caveats that I think are at least important. So I said earlier, we got to go to scripture. There's a lot of scripture we could go to, but let me just go to a few things. Number one, no one can come to me, John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me, Jesus is talking here, draws them and I will raise them up on the last day. So this isn't talking about possibility.

This is talking about it's definitely going to happen. If these people come to me, I will raise them up on the last day with the implication of for salvation. So it, but no one can come to me unless the Father who sent them draws them. So then the question becomes, well, if they don't come to him, what's going to happen to them on the last day? Where are they going to go? Hell. Well, if only they can come, who the Father draws, but not everyone comes to Jesus. Then what is the implication of that? That there were going to be some who don't and they're going to go to hell. But then I have to wrestle with that verse of like, Hey, if only people can come at the Father draws them, why doesn't he just draw everybody? Yeah. So I have to wrestle with that. Yeah. Um, I have to wrestle with Romans nine, where it talks about how Pharaoh was raised up. Um, and it says to show his power, but then eventually, um, Romans nine, Paul says, um, that God, he's God speaking, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will harden whom I will harden talking to Pharaoh and that somehow God showed his glory by pouring out his wrath and judgment on Pharaoh. And I have to ask myself, like, what do I do with that? How do I wrestle with that? There's other passages. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to give you a few just to wrestle with. And I say, Hey, I have no illusions that when I'm saying all this in this conversation, if you disagree with me, you're going to come to my side. I'm more giving those passages, say those passages have to mean something, whether you like it or not, I'm giving you some passages just to go maybe after this podcast and wrestle with them.

Okay. So here's the reality is a Calvinist would say this, that God ultimately, yes, chooses everything, but he chooses differently. There's a difference between him actively choosing someone for salvation and then actively passing over someone for it's often called his damnation or them going to hell. Okay. Think of it like this, going back to John six, four, four, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them. Let me say it like this. The only thing that God has to do to allow anyone to go to hell is to do nothing. If God left us to our own devices, every single human being would go to hell without exception. Everybody exercises their quote unquote free will and nobody picked God. Exactly. So they would reject him. When I read that, and it says, no one can do it unless the Father shall be chosen, it means the only thing he has to do is leave people to themselves. By the way, that's a verse, right? Yes. Is it Romans 3, 3, 3? Yeah, no, what I just read was John 6, 44. And so, oh, you're talking about the rebellion. Yeah, Romans 3, 23. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yeah, that's called rebellion against God, every single one of us. And by the way, I know this is taking me a few minutes. I'm trying to just go slow for people, and again, try to point to verses

and have us at least wrestle with them instead of giving an easy answer to a tough question. And so, all that God would have to do for everybody to go to hell is to do nothing. He'd just leave them to themselves, and they would reject him. In order to save anyone, he has to take the initiative. But there's a difference between saying God has to actively do something to save me, or he has to passively do nothing to not save me. Here's why this is important. I know some people are gonna respond, and maybe you will in a second. Well, Paul, it ends up in the same place. And yes, it practically does, but let me give a different analogy away from salvation to kind of help people understand maybe a different way of coming out this, is to say, hey, what we're trying to do is we're trying to guard against the idea of God being the author of evil. And I don't like it when people say double predestination, God sends them to hell. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a difference between saying God has to do something to save me, and he has to do nothing to not save me. And almost nobody believes that today, right? No true Calvinist believes that. No true legit Calvinist, I would argue,

actually believes in what's called double predestination. Instead, it's reprobation, the idea of God passively does nothing. I'll get back to, like, well, why would he? I'll get to that. Okay, maybe to give it a different avenue to help get people's minds around this. And again, I know I'm taking a few minutes on this. The other should be a little bit faster. I just know this is probably the toughest one for people. Is God sovereign over the weather? Yeah. So does that mean that if God wanted to change the path of a tornado, he can? He could. He could. And I'm gonna have to use a terrible example, I'm sorry. So let's say that there is a tornado that takes out, unfortunately, a young family. That's tragedy. And we would say, oh man, that's a part of living in a fallen world, right? So was God not sovereign over that tornado? He's sovereign over everything. But would you, Carlos, if you're talking to people, would you say God sent that tornado to that family to take them out? No. No. Instead, you would use words like he allowed it to happen.

Now, that doesn't mean he's not in control, but there's a difference between you saying he sent it to do it because he doesn't like them versus he's in control, but he allowed it. And we can't fully understand it because there's mystery, but this is where we have to trust that God is good and he's good even if I don't understand him. So ultimately, he's sovereign either way, but there is a big difference when we're talking about God's character between him actively doing something harm to someone and him simply letting it happen. That's what we're talking about in this. Again, you may not agree with me, but here's what I say. After all that, and I know that was a lot, and there's more, but go to John 6, 44, go to Romans 9 and simply wrestle with what seems to be a clear indication of what I just said. But Paul, that's a great answer, by the way, but I'm gonna play the Arminian now. Please. 1 Timothy 2, verse 3 says, but God, our Savior, desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's what God wants. Yeah. So then how do you put that verse next to what you just said? Such a good question, because when you read that, you're like, well, man, how do you get around this? Two things.

Number one, I would say, well, hey, you and I, I'm assuming, I'm joking around that, or I'm assuming you're an Arminian right now. You and I both have to believe that God desires something and he doesn't fulfill it. We both had that problem because you just said he desires that all are saved, but do you believe Carlos all are saved? No, we're not universalists. No. So you and I both have to say something else overrides that desire. You would say, oh, it's free will. I would say no, it's that God has a sovereign plan not to, would be another thing. Number two would be this. But hold on, let me push back. But he desires everybody to be saved. So you're saying he wants something, but within his control. That he has, in this case, we'd go to Romans nine, where it says that somehow God is glorified through him carrying out judgment, that somehow God's glory is shown in a way that couldn't have been otherwise. And I'm like, well, how does that make sense? We'll come back to that a little bit with Romans nine, maybe, and I can maybe read some verses about when we begin questioning God's character in this. Okay.

But here's what- Paul specifically, the apostle Paul specifically addresses that, but go ahead. Yeah, maybe I should go ahead in a second and get to it, because just in case we forget to, okay. But the second thing I'd say is this. It does say that in first Timothy, okay. In second Timothy, it says that, man, we should be patient in teaching with people because God may grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth. Almost the exact same phrasing in the first one. Interesting. So I would say, hey, Carlos, if it says that God desires all to be saved and that he can grant them repentance to be saved, why doesn't he grant it to everybody? Yeah. Well, no, like why? Oh, you're asking me? Yeah. I'm responding to this in our meeting. Why? Because free will. Well, but he says that he can grant them repentance. It says that in 2 Timothy 2. He says he may grant them. Yeah, he grants repentance to the people that chooses to trust in him. But he says he may grant repentance that he has to grant it to them before they do choose them.

So, like, explain that to me. Before they choose him? Well, yeah, if he grants you repentance, then that's something he has to give to you before you can actually act on it. Yeah, well, in his foreknowledge, he knows who's going to trust in him, so he just kind of sees ahead, quote-unquote, ahead. He foresees that he would grant you the ability to choose him. He foresees that somebody would choose him at some point, and he grants repentance to those who choose him. My point in doing this, so we don't lose too many people on this right now, is this. I'm in the Arminian, so I'm just— Is what I'm trying to show you is that for each of these questions, there's verses like these, and there's thoughts like these that introduce tensions that we have to hold together. First Timothy does say that, but then if you're Arminian, and I say, well, hey, it says almost the exact same phrasing, but it talks about granting repentance, why doesn't he grant it to everybody? You then have to answer that question. And by the way, the tension I have to figure out is First Timothy, so it's not that one of us gets to forget it. We both have to hold that together. As we're talking about this, one thing I want to interject in case you're beginning to feel this or think this in your mind, even if you don't agree with the perspective I'm putting out there, is you may be thinking, oh, God would have no right. He doesn't. No, that's terrible. He doesn't get to do that. He has no right to that. You've got to be really careful when you say that, because when the Apostle Paul is making basically the same argument in Romans 9, he's imagining this opponent, kind of like you're my opponent right now.

He's imagining an opponent. And the Apostle Paul says in Romans 9, 19, why does he still find fault? Well, hey, if he has decided these things, then why does he hold people accountable for these things? Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will? By the way, would this ever be an accuser of an Arminian, that verse? Who would ever resist his will? Yeah. I mean. No, an Arminian would never be accused of this. Only a Calvinist. Okay, okay. A little point I'm trying to make right there. But then here's Paul's response. Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Well, what does molded say to the motor? Why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vestibule for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? Here's what I say is, even if you can't accept the viewpoint that I'm espousing, be very careful not to get to a place where you say things like, God would have no right. The response is saying, hey, dude, you are not God. God can do whatever he wants. And you may not agree with me that God wants to do the things I'm saying, but you have to at least say God could if he wanted to. All right. Next question. I know we're starting. Yeah.

We're almost there. It was fun. Okay. So some, this was, I don't even know if I should go here because it's going to open up another conversation here. Did Jesus die for everybody then? If he knew he was going to choose only some, then how does that apply to what Jesus accomplished at the cross? Was it just for a limited, and then by the way, this is for people wondering, this is a third, I believe it's the third point of Calvinism. Yeah. So there's, it was called Tulip. So the people that sometimes talk about the five points of Calvinism, you got total depravity. You've got unlimited, I mean, sorry, you've got unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. So limited atonement, it's a fancy phrase, but basically it means that, and I don't like the phrase limited atonement. I don't use that phrase, but the idea of God, some people would say, oh, God only died for the elect, for those he chose before the creation of the world. So is that really what you want to ask me? Did Jesus really only die for a few people? Did he not just actually die for everybody? It just cuts the chase. Did Jesus only die for a few people that he would be electing? So let me say the short phrase and then let me unpack it. Okay. Jesus died for everybody sufficiently, but he only died for the elect or the chosen efficiently. Okay. Now that's a bloated phrase. Let me just say it again.

Jesus Christ died for everybody sufficiently. I'll stop here and say his death is sufficient for anyone who would repent and place their faith in him. Okay. Anyone in the world, anybody and everybody, but it is effective for only those that he chose. Let me put it a different way. His death doesn't make something accomplishable. It accomplishes something because if you're from an Arminian perspective, you can't actually say it accomplished something. You have to say it made it accomplishable because, or maybe put it a different way. Did Jesus Christ, from an Arminian perspective, if you believe that you have to choose him before he chooses you, did he save you on the cross or did he make you saveable? He saved us on the cross. Well, if you're from an Arminian perspective, you have to make you say, I am saveable. This is the difference. So a Calvinist is more going to say, no, no, he actually did something on the cross. By the way, we have verses to back this up in Acts chapter 20, it said that God purchased his bride, the church, with his own blood. It wasn't a hypothetical. No, it didn't say he made him purchasable, it said he actually accomplished something. did something. But let me speak to the real issue that a lot of people wrestle with this. And again, I don't use the phrase limited atonement. I like to think of definite atonement or specific. He accomplished something with that. Because here's what I'd say is, using more the idea of love, are we called to love everybody? Am I called to love my wife and my kids in the same way that I love everybody? No. I'm actually called to have a special kind of love. And here's what I say is, God does love the whole world and every person in the world. And Jesus's death is for everybody, and that it is sufficient for everybody in the world. But for his church, for his people, he loves us in a special way that he doesn't love everybody else. And that doesn't mean he doesn't love everybody else, but it's the same thing of saying, hey, I love my wife in a special way.

He loves his bride, his wife, the church in a special way. And what he did on the cross did something for them that it didn't do for everybody. And an Arminian has to believe this. And here's why, is if you say, no, it is for everybody in the same way, then everybody would have to be saved. That's right. That's right. Because if he paid for everybody's sins in the same way, why would God punish the same sins twice? There you go. So, yeah. Yeah. And let me add to that. Let me take off my Arminian hat and put on a covenant, or I guess the reformed one. And again, that does not take away from the fact that we all have responsibility to, again, when we reject God or when we run towards him, it does not take away human responsibility from the equation at the end of the day. So, that's all. Again, as you say, everything you said, which I agree with, we still affirm the fact that every single person is still responsible for. A hundred percent. And because of that, we should share the gospel with them. I quoted some of Romans 9. There's so much there, but what comes out for Romans 9 is, I know you can make a joke at my expense, but please don't, is Romans 10. I have a theory. I have a theory. Is Romans 10. That's exactly what I thought. And in Romans 10 is where the verse is, where it talks about, man, how will they believe unless the gospel is preached to them and unless someone is sent. And then it says that anyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved. Anyone. So, you get those back to back. You get this idea that God is sovereign and in control in Romans 9, and we should go and give the gospel to people and that if anyone believes, they will and can, they can and will be saved. We got to keep them both together. You want to do some of the videos for fun? We got time for like one, maybe. Oh, pick one. I have a feeling you're about, are you about to pit me against a friend? I would love that. How dare you? Shout out to Frank Turk. Oh goodness. Frank. Frank. He's listening, by the way. I know. Uh, I know Frank, and he's already gotten mad. He's probably already texted me five or six text messages at this point after, after listening to this, because he'll text frequently on the podcast. Um, Frank here, let me, let me, let me go ahead. Hey Frank, uh, Paul completely disagrees with you and he wants to crush you, uh, irresponsibly here, uh, on the podcast. So we got a video we'll play. It's literally a minute. And then, uh, Paul, you tell Frank why you think he's wrong. And then, uh, and then we're going to wrap it up. Yeah. Let's play over here. My in-laws are Calvinist. I want to know what the main out of the five points, what is the main thing that's for lack of a better term wrong. What's wrong about Calvinism. See the ultimate problem with Calvinism, hard five point Calvinism, in my view is it makes the world a sham because we

really don't have a free choice, but God is telling us that we ought to choose him because he hasn't chosen us at all. And secondly, it makes God the author of evil. In fact, let me give you a, in a debate that took place 40 years ago at Dallas theological seminary. It was between Norman Geisler, my mentor and a guy by the name of John Gerstner. And at one point Geisler turned to Gerstner and he says, he said, does man have free will? And Gerstner said, yes, man has free will to do what he desires, but God gives him the desire of his heart. So Geisler said, who gave Adam the desire to sin? And Gerstner said, mystery. And Geisler said, contradiction. Listen, this is kind of dirty, man. I love Frank and you like sent me, you know, you're like, oh, I'm going to use this video. Like, I feel like this is an ambush. Like I kind of feel like this is WWE wrestling where he's, Frank's going to like come from behind the curtain with a steel chair and like, be logically wise. Again, Frank, like. He'll be back to the pot at some point. Frank, if you're listening to this and I know you probably will, number one, I hope the first thing you say in your text is Paul, I still love you. And, and then he will probably give me five reasons why I'm wrong. And probably he'll, he'll, you know, he probably will be right and convince me I'm wrong. He doesn't have enough faith to believe what you believe. He doesn't have enough faith to be a Calvinist. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's an inside Frank, that's an inside Frank joke, but no, listen, Frank's amazing. So let me, let me do two things here. Like, and honestly, if Frank were here with us, I would probably even do what I'm about to do. First, let me go to, I'll address Geisler's thing. It really wasn't Frank's thing, he quoted Geisler, and I'll address that here in a second. Let me first address, though, a verse that I would give to Frank and say, okay, Frank, as he talked about, oh, it makes it a sham. They don't actually make their own choices and stuff like that. I'd say, hey, Frank, what do you do with 2 Samuel 24? Which, 2 Samuel 24 is where David takes a census, And he is punished for it. He's punished for it. But it says in 2 Samuel 24, 1, again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and he incited David against them saying, go number Israel and Judah. But, and then, so he incites David to do this and then David does it. In verse 10, it says, David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I've done.

And then he's punished for it. So like right there, I say, Hey, it seems like it says God incited him to do this thing, David did it, David takes responsibility for it and then is punished for it. So how has God not unjust in that perspective? This is a hard one, honestly, for people from Frank's position. I love Frank. This is a hard one because I would argue that I'm like, Hey, like right here, if you're basically telling me, cause I think what Frank would say is it's a shame. It would be unjust for God to punish people for things they had no choice in if they didn't, if the desire didn't originate within them, but from God. And I'd say, so here you got a few choices. One would be that God, Oh, he usually doesn't work like this. This was an exception. The problem there is if you say God is unjust to work like this, you would have to say God is only unjust part of the time. That's not a great option. So a second option, and I'm sure again, like we'd say, Hey, like one option would be, Hey, we can't fully explain it, but in the same way that when David wrote the Psalms, David wrote everything he wanted to write and yet the Holy Spirit inspired him, so David wrote everything God wanted him to say at the same time, and those don't contradict. Here, the way that God incited him is he somehow worked through his desires. And actually in the other passage where this says the same thing, it says God incited, I mean, sorry, it says Satan incited David. So the idea of God even potentially worked through, like worked through Satan, but in a way that does not make God the author of evil, because you wouldn't hear where Frank wouldn't want to make God the author of evil here. So somehow we'd have to say somehow David did what he wanted to do while also doing what God wanted to do.

You follow me? And if Frank agreed with that, I'd say, Frank, that's exactly what I believe. We believe the same thing. Whereas we would say this isn't just true here. It's true everywhere all the time. First thing I would say to him. I know that was a lot, but it's necessary to kind of get into the weeds of the thing. On Geisler's thing, what Geisler is pointing to is that there is a mystery for Calvinists. And here's how I like to tell people. For a Calvinist, the mystery is in the past. For an Arminian, the mystery is in the future. Here's what I mean. There is a bit of mystery. How can God not be the author of evil and do evil if somehow God initiated the plan that would involve sin and somehow had to work through desires? How can God, and that is a mystery. We, there are some answers out there. We don't have time for them today, but still there is a place where we do have to play the mystery card. I always tell people that you're going to have to play a mystery card somewhere, just like an ace of spades. Really try to save it to the end when you absolutely need it. But I'd say if I forget, Frank, for a second, if Norman were here, God rest his soul, brilliant man, by the way, love a lot of Norman's stuff. I'd say, Hey, Norm, if I understand you correct, do you believe that for justice and love to exist, your version of free will has to exist? We have to be able to choose to reject God for justice and love to exist. And he would say, yes. And I would say, do you believe we will be able to sin in heaven?

No. So does that mean that there's no justice or love in heaven? Glorified body. But you're not able to though. So you tell me that there is no justice or love in heaven because you won't be able to choose to sin. And he would say mystery. And I would say contradiction. My point is, is that I know like he loves to play that against us. You got to play the mystery card everywhere here. Let me sum this up and then we can get into maybe some pastoral recommendations to wrap this up. My point in this, and if you've been mad, as I've been talking, like, Oh, like you never just answer a question. You always ask with another question. I've been doing that a little intentionally to say, Hey, there are questions that both sides have a tough time answering because there is scripture in support of both and there is logic in support of both. And they're really tough versus, I mean, there's really tough things that we have to think about in terms of both. This is the part I went back and forth for years on. It's a part of why I did this is hopefully to make people wrestle a little bit with it. But then also what I'm hoping will happen is that we'll see, Hey, there's tough things that both of us have to wrestle with. This should cause us to be a lot more gracious with each other and not immediately assume the worst. Calvinists can look at Arminians and say, Oh, you don't care about the glory of God. And you don't care about his sovereignty. And Arminian can look at people and say, Oh, you don't care about God's love.

And usually when people go to heaven, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's not assume the worst. Let's just both assume that we're trying to look at scripture and wrestle with the tensions we see. All right. Let's do it. Maybe get some final pastoral words and wrap it up. Just to add to what you said, 1 Corinthians 13, 12, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Man, a couple of things, again, somebody's asking, but what if I am not elect? What if I'm not chosen? What if God didn't choose me? Let me just read the Bible. John 6, 37. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. That's great news. Come to Jesus. Run to Jesus. Find hope in Jesus. Any thoughts on that? Yeah, let me actually go back to really to me, because again, we're mainly talking to believers on this podcast, obviously. And again, there's people probably from both sides of this listening, and I want to leave you with this in terms of from my perspective of hopefully, again, we now can lock arms and go do the same thing. And I mentioned earlier, my intern, my resident, Derek,

who he just came, hadn't slept in days. And I was just like, hey, Derek, let me give you some words. And it wasn't, hey, let me convince you of my position. I didn't even tell him where I stood on this. I said, hey, Derek, let's say that Calvinism is true, and they are predestined one way or another. Whose responsibility and choice is it ultimately if they come to faith or not? And he said, God's. And I said, okay, whose responsibility is it to share the gospel with them? And he said, mine. I'm like, you're right. Let's say Arminianism is true. Conditional election is true. And it's like, whose ultimate responsibility is it if they believe in Jesus or not? And he said, my family's. He said, theirs. And I said, you're right. But whose responsibility is it to share the gospel with them? And he said, mine. And I said, you're right, Derek. Either way, what you just said, Derek, is that either way, you're not responsible for what they do, but you are responsible for what you do. You're not responsible if they believe, but you are responsible for presenting the gospel so that they can have a chance to believe.

So my hope in this is this. It's wherever you land on this, let's all go out this week and this next week and let's share the gospel passionately and frequently, knowing that God is able to open up eyes and raise the dead and save the lost. Let me end with, that's great. Let me end with these two quotes and then I'll ask you to pray, Paul. R.C. Sproul, God doesn't just throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, pulls a corpse from the bottom, takes him up on the bank, breathes into him the breath of life and makes him alive. John Newton, I remember two things only, that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great savior. Pastor Paul. Yeah, can I say one more thing? Please, go ahead. I almost forgot. I hate to do this. I hate to do this because that's such a good end. I want to give you actually something that I once heard John Piper saying. John Piper, if you don't know JP, the OG JP, he is an ardent Calvinist, ardent Calvinist and love him. But by the way, I just love John Piper. I once heard him, he was asked a question on this, specifically around like, man,

has God risen people to hell? And he said as one of his prerequisite, one of his things, he said, hey, if believing this, he said, John said, even though I think it's what the Bible teaches, if believing this makes you think that God is a monster and you're not loving, I would rather have you not believe it. Interesting. So I will give that one final password word. So I remember this as you were talking, I was like, oh, I feel like we got to share this. If you're out there and you're like, man, even though I see this in scripture, like there's just no way around this. I'm like, then you know what? I would rather you not believe it and still know that God is a loving God and trust that maybe God will work in your mind and your heart. But I just say, hey, if this is going to really cause you trouble, let it go for now and go do what I said a few minutes ago. Share the gospel, believing everything that R.C. Sproat through what Carlos just had said. All right. I'll pray for us. Please do. All right.

Man, Father, thank you for the fact that we can as Christian brothers and sisters have these kinds of conversations and disagree even fiercely God, but still be brothers and sisters in Christ and still have the same Lord and the same Father, but also still have the same mission to go and present the gospel to people, even if we disagree of how people come to faith. And God, I pray that would happen. God, I pray that you would fill us with a passion to go out and to tell people the good news of what you came to this earth to do. I want to ask God that you would not let this issue divide or distract us. Help us not divide or distract us. Lord, I want to pray, going back to some things we talked about in the first part of this podcast, that Lord, you would give us the tenacity and the grit to do the things you've called us to do, to be in those rhythms, to keep showing up day by day, knowing that you have something that you created us and saved us to become. And would you give us grace to do everything we can in our part to step into what you have made a way for us to become. We love you. It is in your name we pray.

Amen. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free.