Dennis Tuuri

It’s found in Matthew 11 verses 25 through 28. Matthew 11:25-28. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father. And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Let’s pray. Father, we pray that you would take this next few minutes and cause our hearts to rejoice and to worship you for your providence that you have done all things well. Help us Lord God to be empowered by your spirit to understand and believe in submission to these texts. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

May be seated and the younger children whose parents desire it may be dismissed.

We have assembled today to worship God. We have been called here to worship him, to give him thanks, to praise him for all things. We worship God as he is revealed to us in the scriptures. And so our worship, thanksgiving, and praise of God is to be for all things.

Now, this includes our understanding of who men are. And this includes our understanding of what God causes to pass in the context of men and their salvation or reprobation. We have been discussing the third and fourth points of the Canons of Dort and particularly point number three, the doctrine of total depravity as some call it the corruption of men.

J.C. Ryle, Bishop Ryle wrote in the last century said this: “There are very few errors in false doctrines of which the beginning may not be traced up to some unsound views about the corruption of human nature.” Very few errors, false doctrines which cannot be traced to some unsound views of the corruption of human nature. Wrong views, said Ryle, of the disease will always bring with them wrong views of a remedy.

Wrong views of the corruption of human nature will always carry with them wrong views of the grand antidote and cure of that corruption. So we need a clear understanding of man’s condition from God’s perspective in order to understand his plan of redemption.

And thus endeth a quote from Bishop Ryle.

Origins. Who are we? We’ve said that in man’s fall, he has become depraved. He has become corrupted. We read last week from Romans chapter 3 and Ephesians 2 a description of man’s depravity, his corruption. And as one writer says, a definition of total depravity can be found in the book of Romans. Let’s forget man’s words for a moment and just quote from the book of Romans as to what we mean when we say that man’s fallen estate is depraved.

Quoting: “Both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin as it is written, ‘There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become useless. There is none who does good, no, not even one.’”

There you have a definition of the depravity of man and his corruption. Dead. Ephesians tells us: in trespasses and sins. No one does good. Incapable and unwilling to do good as defined by good in the sense that God gives it to us.

The tenants say that in Adam’s tremendous creation, he had tremendous honor and glory from God. And in his fall, he not only forfeited all that, but positively accumulated to himself sins and perversions by which he does evil in the land. It’s not simply an absence of doing good. The scriptures tell us that man does evil. Man then produces offspring with original guilt as well as original pollution.

Original guilt is a different thing than some people mean by original sin. We say original sin to kind of encompass it all together. Original guilt says that you don’t just have original sin. You have original guilt and condemnation from Adam’s sin.

Romans 5:12 Paul says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” In Adam’s fall, we received condemnation and guilt. Romans 5:18 says, “So then, as through the one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men. Through one transgression referring to Adam came not just original sin and any kind of propensity, but the scriptures say through one man one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. Important. Very important point.”

You know, definition is everything. The Armenians twisted the definition of original sin to remove original guilt. And they might say original pollution okay, no original guilt, no original condemnation for the sin of Adam. The scriptures say clearly that we have such condemnation. All men are condemned as one writer put it to all the penalties of death because of Adam’s sin. In Adam all died.

Bishop Ryle is correct. Most doctrines have an improper view of man’s fall and as a result an improper view of redemption. And we’ll talk about that as we go through this sermon today.

This country was founded with a correct view of man’s fall. This is not a difficult truth to understand. It was the first thing, in one way of saying it, the first thing taught to children for a long time in colonial America. The New England Primer was the book. It was the curriculum book. Probably all we need today, too, if we were doing a good job with the younger children at least.

And it began with a series of letters and poems to remember the letters of the alphabet. The letter A had a little saying. Children would memorize it from just as far as they could speak practically. Letter A was remembered by “In Adam’s fall.”

“In Adam’s fall we sinned all.”

People think it’s funny that we included that in the confessional statement of this church. Some people think it’s stupid, but it is a profound truth. That’s what we’ve been saying for the last couple of weeks. If you understand the profundity of that truth, it will keep you from various heresies and improper views not just of man’s corruption but of man’s redemption and the atonement.

Man is born—excuse me for having a cold—the providence of God we thank him for that, don’t we? Man was born with the absence. Man is then therefore born since the fall of Adam with the absence of original righteousness and also with the presence of perverse evil. Bettner likes the term instead of total depravity: total inability. He is unable to do what’s right. He is unable to come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says in Romans 8:7, “The mindset in the flesh, which is the unbelieving mind, the mindset in the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Inability. Total inability.

We’ve said that total depravity can be talked of in terms of being not intensive. It doesn’t mean that man is as bad as he could possibly be, but it is extensive. The depravity, the twistedness, the corruption, man’s corruption extends to every part of his personality, to his thinking, to his emotions, and to his will.

His mind now suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness. It’s not just that he can’t think quite clearly. He thinks perversely and holds down the truth of God. His emotions are not just sort of tending toward evil. His emotions are given over to perverseness of emotions. And his will is not neutral as the Armenians claim. His will, his demiurgical aspect, his ruling aspect is twisted. And he rules improperly and he rules himself improperly.

He is not necessarily intensely sinful, but sin is extended to his entire being. The unregenerate unsaved man is dead in his sins. Romans 5:12, Ephesians 2. He is without the power of the Holy Spirit. The natural man is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel. Mark 4:11 and following. Total depravity is, as some as I said mentioned it, referred to as total inability.

The man without a knowledge of God will never come to this knowledge without God’s making him alive again through Christ. We said that Ephesians 2 defines death in the context of the lack of the quickening life of Jesus Christ. So he’s dead in his trespasses and sins, unable to do anything. His mind, his emotions, and his will are all perverted, all corrupted and all depraved.

All men are unrighteous in their nature, unable to understand God, unwilling to seek God, unable to do any spiritual good. Genesis 6:5 says this about the state of men: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every intent of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.”

Not just some of those thoughts. Every intent of the thought of his heart is only evil continually.

And you say, “Well, you know, I see people do good things. What do you mean?”

Well, the scriptures tell us that whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And so, if man does some external good to you, which he can do, to himself or to others to society, this is not good in the sight of God. This is evil because it’s done for the wrong motivation. It’s not done of faith. It’s not done to honor and glorify God. It’s done to honor and glorify man or some other thing. And because of that, it’s sin.

And so, Proverbs tells us that even the lamp of the wicked, you know, is sin. Even the good works that appear like light, you know, even the lamp of the wicked is sin. Luther put it this way: “Even the plowing of the wicked is sin.” That’s a good thing, plow your field, to work hard. But Luther understood that whatsoever is not of faith is sin. The man’s depravity is he can do nothing of faith to God and will do nothing of faith to God. And therefore, even the plowing of the unregenerate man of all in Adam or under hell is sin apart from the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ and the regeneration of God.

Romans 8:7 says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Enmity—that word means hatred. The word means that he hates God. Whether we like it or not, that’s what the scriptures say about who we are. Paul confessed in Romans 7:18, “I know that in me, that is in my flesh, in my Adamic, fallen nature,” Paul says, “dwelleth no good thing.”

Okay? Nothing. Even the plowing of the wicked is sin. The scriptures repeat this over and over and over. It’s not too tough to understand intellectually. It’s just not tough to accept morally.

The Confessions and creeds say the same thing. For instance, the Heidelberg Catechism, question answer number eight: “Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all wickedness?”

“Indeed, we are. Except we are regenerated by the spirit of God.”

Heidelberg Catechism. The Belgic Confession says in article number 14: “And being become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts which he had received from God and only retained a few remnants thereof, which however are sufficient to lead man without excuse. For all the light which is in us is changed into darkness, as the scriptures teach us, saying, ‘The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.’” When St. John called men darkness, called men darkness.

The Westminster Confession of Faith—quoted from Reformed now Presbyterian sources—chapter nine of the Westminster Confession of Faith, section three: “Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man being altogether adverse from that good and dead in sin is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto.”

Same iteration of the same truth the scriptures teach. The Reformed teach. The Presbyterians’ standards repeat as well.

Now, does this mean—one of the objections to this we want to deal with for a couple of minutes—does this mean that man is an automaton, that we’re just robots that God has set us up, that since Adam we just are robots and we don’t have any decision-making going on? Do we have a will? Well, yeah. The Westminster Confession talks about the fact that we have a will and we exercise freedom in our will.

So we want to talk now about why that is. Why can the Bible say we’re unable if really what it is we’re unwilling to do something? And the Bible puts them both together as we’ve seen in countless scriptures.

Well, Robert Dabney in one of his works on total depravity spoke to this problem and he says this: “This original sin shows itself in all natural men in a fixed and utter opposition of heart to some forms of duty and especially and always to spiritual duties owing to God and in a fixed and absolutely decisive purpose of heart to continue in some sins even while practicing some social duties and especially to continue with their sins of unbelief, impenitence, self-will, and practical godliness.”

So Dabney is saying, well, men are unwilling to do much of any good really, even the plowing they don’t like to do. And man is simply completely adverse doing anything that is spiritually good in the sense of pleasing God. Why is this? If they have this freedom, if you seem to experience, you got up this morning, you could do what you wanted to do, right? You could get in your car and come to church, you could stay home, you could go to a movie, whatever you wanted to do, you could do today. So, how is it that fallen man is unable to do good?

Well, again to quote from Dabney: “They are free in their choices as surely as they are free to choose in any given way. But they are as certain to choose agreeably to their original dispositions as rivers are to run downwards. Equally certain and equally free because the dispositions which certainly regulate their preferences are their own, not someone else’s, and are spontaneous in them not compelled.”

What’s he talking about? What he’s saying is that the nature that you inherit from Adam, your propensities, as surely as the river flows downstream, your propensities will lead your will, which is also depraved, to do the wrong thing to choose against God instead of choosing for God. You choose. The unregenerate man chooses everything he does in his life. But he will always choose to do the evil thing or the wicked thing.

Okay, Dabney gave an illustration. He says let’s say he gets—I say I get the young people together in the church today and I say come and engage with me of your free choice in a particular given course of labor. It will be long and it will be arduous but I assure you of a certain result. I promise you that by this laborious hard backbreaking effort you shall make yourself the most despised and abused set of young people in the United States.

Come on, let’s go do the work. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be miserable, sweaty, but you know, at the end of it, you’re going to be hated by everybody. So, come on, let’s go do the work. Well, you know, you’re going to say, “No, I’m not going to do that.” Well, that’s the way it is for the unregenerate man in his will. He wills to do things, but his will is completely adverse to doing what’s right. He always chooses self-will as opposed to God’s authority. It is equally certain that this is what he shall do. He shall always choose the wrong or twisted will.

You know, in Genesis, we read of Joseph’s brothers. Here’s a quote from the scriptures: that they hated their brother Joseph so that they could not speak peaceably unto him. They had tongues. They had minds that could think peaceable thoughts that they might say to Joseph—you know, they you could say in one case that they had an ability to do it. The scriptures say they couldn’t do it. They could not speak peaceably unto Joseph. That’s unregenerate man.

He’s got the tongue. He’s got the words. But he cannot speak peaceably unto the greater Joseph. Why? Because he hates him. He hates the Lord Jesus Christ. The fleshly mind is enmity, hatred against God. You see?

So, yeah, we’re not saying that people are robots. We’re saying in fact that people choose all the time. And in fact, they will always choose because of their depraved nature, the basis of Adam’s sin, they will always choose not to speak peaceably unto Jesus Christ and his people. They will not take upon the path that seems so ridiculous and hard and promising such terrible results to them. Their very nature hates the presence of God.

Okay. So that deals with the will of men. The wicked, the scriptures say, go astray as soon as they be born speaking lies. That’s the picture of God’s identification of who fallen man is in his estate.

Now let’s review then based on these scriptures, let’s review again what we said Dort says about these things in the third head of doctrine. You know, it says first of all, the first head says, you know, that man was created good and upright and holy in his will. Very important that he fell, forfeit all that. Secondly, it says that he propagates his own nature. And third, then that the children of all believers—are the way we just described them. Always given over to rebellion against God. They cannot choose God. They cannot come to life. They’re not sick. They’re dead.

Okay? And then here’s what article 4 says: “To be sure, there is left in man after the fall some light of nature whereby he retains some notions about God, about natural things, and about the difference between what is honorable and shameful. He has a conscience. He’s got general revelation. The Romans 1 says witnesses to who God is. And he shows some regard for virtue and outward order. But he is so far from arriving at the saving knowledge of God and true conversion through this light of nature that he does not even use it properly in natural or civil matters. Rather, whatever this light may be, man wholly pollutes it in various ways and suppresses it by his wickedness. By doing this, he makes himself inexcusable before God. So in addition to the man having a will, twisted, perverted will, he also has certain knowledge of the world. He’s got a conscience. He knows what’s right and what’s wrong. He’s got the presence of God shouted at him from all of creation. He has knowledge. He has some light left given to him. But that light cannot bring him to faith. He rejects it and he holds it down as Romans 1 says in unrighteousness. He passes that knowledge.”

Okay, so natural light, general revelation, you could say, will not bring fallen man to salvation. And they go on to say in article 5 that the law won’t do this either: “What holds for the light of nature also applies to the Ten Commandments given by God through Moses, particularly to the Jews. For though it reveals the greatness of sin, and more and more convicts man of his guilt, yet it neither points out a remedy nor gives him power to rise out of this misery. Rather, weakened by the flesh, it leaves the transgressor under the curse. Man cannot therefore through the law obtain saving grace.”

So it’s these two together: general revelation won’t do it, can’t do it, man won’t respond to it. Special revelation—the law of God given ultimately to the Jews as a saved people, that’s the point of the text—it never was given as a means of salvation either. Was general revelation and in any event the special revelation of the law or the scriptures, they also cannot come to saving faith by the right use of that. They cannot by the right use of general revelation in the world, conscience, nor through the special revelation of God’s revealed word through the law. Neither of those means are they able to come to faith. Dead, unable, can’t do it. That’s the whole point. Drives it home. Boom. Boom. Boom. Nail in the coffin.

And you need to get it driven home in your own head. He can’t do it.

And then of course the transition comes in article six: “What therefore neither the light of nature or the law can do, God performs through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the word or ministry of reconciliation which is the gospel of the Messiah, by which it has pleased God to save men who believe both under the old and new dispensation.”

So see, they’re not—he never were saved by works. In the Old Testament it was always by grace. And what they’re saying here is: what we cannot do, God in his great grace, love and mercy to the elect accomplishes through the Holy Spirit, through the ministry of reconciliation, the gospel of the Messiah. God that is pleased to save men—the elect—who believe. And what the rest of the next points—that we’ll talk about in a couple of weeks. Next week we’ll have Mr. Blumenfeld. The week after that Mr. Wilson will preach for us. Then we’ll return to these—this third and fourth head of doctrine. But we’ll move toward the discussion of irresistible grace.

You see, and this article six is the transition. Points 1-6 say all the things man can’t do. Six then says that God will do it. And we’ll look on as what the church fathers said of how that is accomplished according to the scriptures through the Holy Spirit and the word.

We’ll talk about that. Okay, so this transition point. Now, remember we said that it also rejects certain things. These Canons do. Let me read the rejections and I’m going to read rejections of errors four and five from the Canons.

They reject “those who teach that the unregenerate man is not really, nor utterly dead in sin nor destitute of all powers of the spiritual good, but that he can yet hunger and thirst after righteousness and life, and offer the sacrifice of a contrite and broken spirit, which is pleasing to God. For these things are contrary to the express testimony of scripture,” “Ye were dead in their trespasses and sins.” Ephesians 2:1-5. See Ephesians 6:58, which we’ve read.

“Moreover, to hunger and thirst after deliverance from misery and after life, and to offer unto God the sacrifice of a broken spirit is peculiar to the regenerate and those that are called blessed.” Psalm 51:17, Matthew 5:6.

See, the Armenians taught, “Oh, no, man isn’t totally dead. He can still hunger and thirst after righteousness.”

You see, now this is not the purpose of this doctrine, but this is a doctrine, by the way, that brings great assurance. You know, some people don’t think they’re saved. There was a post to the common practice wing this last week of a man saying he knew a fella that wasn’t sure. He knew about election, all that. He just wasn’t sure he was elect. Well, if that man hungers and thirsts after righteousness, he demonstrates election and he can be assured from the word of God that he’s been regenerated if he hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

Not the effects of righteousness. That’s what Esau did. He wanted the blessings. But if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, that’s not the mark of an unregenerate man. That’s the mark of a regenerate man. The church fathers said. So the Armenians are wrong who say that the natural man can hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Then the last rejection that I’ll read and we’ll turn to Romans 1: they reject “those who teach that the corrupt and natural man can so well use the common grace and then they insert by which they the Armenians understand the light of nature.”

Okay, so let’s stop there. So they’re saying that we reject those who say that by common grace man can come to salvation. They say we don’t use the term common grace. That’s what the Armenians are calling it. We call it the light of nature. I’ll talk about that more in a couple minutes. I’m a little stretched here today. Stretching you a little bit to think about the doctrine of common grace.

Okay. That the corrupted natural man can so use the common grace by which they understand the light of nature or the gifts still left him after the fall that he can gradually gain by their good use a greater—that is the evangelical or saving grace and salvation itself. And that in this way God on his part shows himself ready to reveal Christ unto all men since he applies to all sufficiently and efficiently the means necessary to conversion.

“For both the experience of all ages and the scriptures testify that this is untrue. He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and decrees to Israel. He hath done this for no other nation. They do not know his laws.” That’s Psalm 147. “In the past, he let all nations go their own ways.” Acts 14:16. And then they reference the verse that I talked about last week where God forbid Paul to go to a particular place of the world to preach the gospel.

Okay. So they have very important rejection of error because the Armenians teach—and we have been trained, most of us sitting here, were trained in past churches and under past teaching that the unregenerate man had a common grace given to him and if he made proper use of that common grace could attain to saving grace. And that this common grace is given by God to all men.

Okay. And they say no. In point, he doesn’t do that. They like the light of nature because—let me read again from Romans 1.

Romans 1 says verse 18: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Suppress the truth and unrighteousness. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. There’s that light of nature. It’s manifest in them. For God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even the eternal power and Godhead and they without excuse because that when they knew God, okay, all regenerate men know God, but they don’t glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man.”

Now, what does God do as a result of that? Romans 1 goes on to say then that he turns them over judicially to increasing sin. He turns the sodomite over to that because of a previous rejection and unthankfulness for the revelation of who God is. And that God then shows himself in Romans 1 as a downward spiral. But the downward spiral is a series of judgments of God against unregenerate man as he moves more and more in terms of his own depravity. You see?

Okay. Now, I want to talk a little bit about Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. Not that tough. Pelagius was a man. He was a monk. He lived about the 4th century. He said that men don’t have original sin. He said that we sin. We come out of the womb completely neutral and we see—we start looking at our mom and dad and they’re sinning. So Adam’s kids looked at him and they sinned by way of imitation and our kids look at us and they sin by way of imitation. And Pelagius said that’s all the problem man has within him.

Then that kid came out of the womb. He’s got that ability to do what’s right until he starts seeing his parents. Now he still has the ability. So Pelagianism says really the only thing we need is a certain energy, energize that will. We’re not really dead. We’ve got the grace of God in us already. We can choose to do what’s right. He can save himself. Pelagius believed that man could save himself, that he wasn’t really twisted.

Now, Armenians weren’t totally that way. They were more what some people call semi-Pelagian. They’re not quite that because they believed that there was original sin. They believed that when man came out of the womb, he wasn’t totally neutral. They believed his will was neutral, but they believed kind of was given over to sin. Okay? So he does need grace to get over that propensity to sin. And that’s what the Armenian means by common grace. You see? That’s why they rejected that error.

Armenians said, man don’t come forth totally neutral like Pelagius said and able to save himself. He needs grace. But God has given all men a common grace so that he can do that little thing that’s required to sort of reach out and touch God and reach out toward him and then God will give him saving grace. See? That’s semi-Pelagianism. But it asserts—so it sort of accepts the fall of man and original sin but it doesn’t say original condemnation, that God is wrathful and angry with the sinner every day. Rejects that. Okay.

Now, this is important for this doctrine of common grace. Yet again, I said I’m going to stretch you just a little bit here about common grace. I don’t know what you mean by the term when you use it. I don’t know you. But the term has to be defined. And please understand that the way the Armenians defined it, Dabney said it’s kind of like you’re in a big sloth, big slo, a big ditch. You’re in a ditch and God puts up a little platform just a couple of inches out of the water. And if you can kind of raise yourself up to that platform, boom, he’ll take you all the way up to heaven.

Okay? And all men, to complete the illustration, all men are given by God. Not the grace to get to heaven, not saving grace, the Armenian says, but he’s given a little grace, a common grace to all men, so that it’s up to the individual person if he responds to the common grace well enough to curl up to that little platform. And if he does that, boom, God takes him to heaven, gives him saving grace.

Now, it still works righteousness, but it’s a funny thing because it makes it a very small work you have to do. Just get up a little bitty effort to ask God to help you. Okay? That’s what the Armenian means by common grace. And when the church fathers here said, “No, no, common grace is what they’re talking about,” none of the Reformed confessions and creeds talk about common grace. They do not use the term.

Okay. Now, let me just—the Christian Reformed Church used this thing we just read from the Canons of Dort about common grace and how they reject the error of the Armenians who say that by common grace man can come to salvation. They used that to teach a doctrine of common grace. In 1924 they made a series of decisions. They made three points of common grace they called it and they said if you’re going to be orthodox Christian in the Christian Reformed Church you got to believe this stuff and if you don’t we’re going to kick you out. And Herman Hoeksema, a guy—didn’t they kick him out and he started the Protestant Reformed Churches rather.

So the point of quoting this is to give you some background as to why even Reformed people will say, “Yeah, well, common grace is biblical.” Here’s what here’s what the CRC decided in 1924.

First of all, they said the first point basically was that God there’s a favorable attitude of God toward humanity in general and not just toward the elect. Okay? God is favorably disposed toward all of mankind and not just the elect. And he gives a certain favor or grace to all creatures in general—common grace.

Secondly, they said that the restraint of sin in the life of the individual man and in the community is a result of this common grace. So God gives—all he has favorably disposed toward everybody and he gives to everybody some degree of grace or favor. And then secondly, part of this grace or favor is that he restrains evil. He keeps men from becoming utterly enslaved in their evil. He does a general restraint of evil as it motivated by his grace, common grace toward all people.

And third, they said that civil righteousness or goodness is actually performed by the unregenerate based on this common grace. God without renewing the heart, quoting now, so influences man that he is able to perform civil good.

Okay, so there are three points where that God’s favorably disposed. Give everybody some good grace. Secondly, that grace means that all men are restrained in their sin as a result of common grace. And third, they said that men can do civil righteousness for good even without God affecting his heart.

Okay? I don’t believe any of that. I believe the scriptures teach that God is angry with the wicked every day. And if God pours down his rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, it is not grace to the unrighteous. It is bounty. It is good things. But these things are not grace. Grace is God’s attitude toward a particular person. Grace is God’s unmerited favor that he gives to the elect. And it is not a law-denying, justice-denying grace.

Why do you receive the grace of God? Is it because God decides not to look at your sin? Blesses you with his grace. Uh-uh. Because God’s days of anger and wrath and eternal torment that is due to you for your sin was placed upon his son. The grace that God has toward men is based upon the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? It’s not overlooking sin. It’s dealing with sin justly by pouring out his wrath in the son for your sake. That’s grace.

Now, if we say that all men are the recipients of common grace, do you see the dilemma you’re in? You either say that we have a general atonement. Okay. One way to resolve to make that true is to say that grace is on the basis of justice of God poured out in Christ. And the atonement now doesn’t secure the elect or salvation of anyone. We’ve talked about this before. See, but this is why they end up there. If you end up with a common grace provided by the atonement, then the atonement is a common atonement. And it’s not what provides you saving grace. You see? It’s either one or the other. It’s either provides common grace or saving grace. And we say the scriptures say it provides saving grace.

The only other way to get at it, say, okay, well, I don’t want to change my view of the atonement since the scriptures are so clear that whoever Christ atoned for, interceded for, more—I mean, saved, delivered, released, all the things we said. The only way to get out of it is not to change grace into—let’s say into a God overlooking or not looking at sins and not dealing with men because of them. It changes God’s grace into an unjust grace.

Do you see? See, grace is favor, unmerited favor, not unmerited in the sense that nobody paid the price. Christ paid the price. Common grace says if we think that God is favorably disposed toward all people. What’s the basis for that? Because the scriptures say that all people have rebelled against God and are his enemies and he is angry with the wicked every day. And the progression then for that first point of common grace that the CRC believes to this day, the progression then is very important because there’s a guy named Abraham Kuyper and he kind of developed this theory of common grace quite a bit in the Netherlands.

And what he said was as an application in the political arena, the cult—the third point they said here is that man could do a simple good. Kuyper said, “Well, there’s really kind of two purposes going on in the world. God’s got his purpose with the elect, and then God’s got his purpose for the world that it might get kind of better.” Okay, that’s a, you know, exaggeration for effect. And what that came down through Kuyper’s followers was that’s the really big purpose of God is the world. And now the purpose of God’s plan of salvation isn’t just the elect. No, it’s the world in general, all men.

Now, do you see why a lot of churches want to do mercy missions to make the world a better place, a more moral, upright, restrained place, not a Christian place? It’s because of this perversion of common grace. You see? I believe the scriptures say that the elect are the apple of God’s eye in Christ. That he apportions the nations as Deuteronomy tells us according to the number of his people. God moves history for the sake of the elect, not for the sake of the world.

You see the world? As it becomes the elect becomes—go preach the gospel and convert the world, you know in total is a different thing—but I’m saying that our job is not to provide some sort of common grace civil righteousness in our country based on unregenerate men. See?

Another truth that the CRC got wrong is that God always restrains the evil of men and he does it because of grace toward them. That’s true that God restrains evil, isn’t it? I mean, men aren’t as bad as they could be and that’s the providence of God and we thank him for that. But that’s not grace toward them. Otherwise, we’re stuck with that atonement problem. And in fact, what did Romans 1 say? Romans 1 says that God turns unregenerate men over to increasing judgments.

Why do we have Sodom? Because men rebelled against God sexually and he judges them and delivers them over to further judgments. He’s not always restraining sin. He brought the iniquity of the Canaanites to a fruition. And he brought the iniquity of the false church to a fruition through their martyring the early church and our Savior Paul, etc. You see? God doesn’t always restrain sin and he never restrains it because of his grace toward the sinner.

So I want you to kind of think through this and think about the implications of common grace. Common grace leads us—the way it’s defined here. You may have a different definition. We can talk about it. But as these men defined it, as the Armenians used it, it meant that God was favorably disposed toward all men. And ultimately the end of that is a washing down of the atonement and a washing away of God’s action and a worked righteousness on the part of the decision-making processes of men.

The end result of that is that the grace of God is subverted. It’s not grace at all anymore. It’s license to men that comes forth from God. And God’s gracious actions that the Lord alone saves is perverted into the Lord helps man in his salvation and he then reaches up to man.

Let me quote Dabney on this idea of common grace and this is from his paper of his called “The Armenian View of the Atonement.”

“Their next point is that God having intended all along to repair the fall and having immediately thereafter given a promise to our first parents has ever since communicated to all mankind a common sufficient grace purchased for all by Christ’s work. This is not sufficient to affect a complete redemption but to enable both naturally and morally to fulfill the conditions for securing redeeming grace.”

So Dabney’s saying that’s what the Armenian believes. That God right after the fall then gave man common grace on the basis of Christ’s work that enables him to be able to choose salvation. Dabney says that’s Armenian and that is the result of their false views.

“The essential idea and argument of the Armenian is that God could not punish man justly for unbelief unless he conferred on him both natural and moral ability to believe or not. This is the old conclusion of the semi-Pelagian. Man then decides the whole remaining difference as to believing or not believing by his use of this common grace according to his own free will. Okay. God’s purpose to produce different results in different men is wholly conditioned on the use which he foresees they will make of their common grace to those who improve it. God stands pledged to give the renewing the crowning graces of regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.”

That’s not Dabney. That’s what the Armenian believes. The foresight of God that they see in Romans chapter 8 is based upon man’s response to common grace.

So what I’m suggesting is that if we go along with this definition that God is favorably disposed toward all men graciously, then we’ve given away the central heart of the gospel that God alone saves and that he has decided in his providence and in his election to elect some and to reprobate others.

Now, I said at the beginning of the service that we’re here to worship God. We’re here to praise God. And in the sermon text that I read, we read this:

“At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, oh Father, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Don’t know exactly when Christ said this. Luke seems to record it after the return of the 70 that had been sent out. In relationship to the preaching of the gospel, in relationship to the acts of God and securing a people for himself, our savior tells us that God is sovereign.

He goes on to say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father. No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Lord will reveal him.” Jesus believed that a particular saving grace based on the election of God for his good pleasure.

Now, we come to this doctrine and we’ve talked about it for a couple of months and I hope it starting to hit home the depth of the importance of this and how in each of our hearts and minds we probably struggle with these things. Born and bred and raised as good humanists, good common grace folks. And it’s hard to challenge ourselves at these truths. And it’s hard to say that God has sovereignly decided to…