Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - God's Sovereignty & Man's Responsibility | How Do I Know If I'm Elect? Don't Miss Jesus' Explanation

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

What if everything you thought about “being a good person” was wrong?In this episode, we explore a shocking but deeply biblical truth: Even the most admired humanitarian like Mother Teresa and the most notorious criminal like Jeffrey Dahmer need the exact same thing to be saved—a miracle of God.This episode is brought to you by our ministry partner Accountable2You. To join thousands living in Freedom with nothing to hide visit https://accountable2you.com/dialin.**Use our unique code: DIALIN to get 25% off your first year of an Accountable2You Personal or Family Plan**This conversation dives into:Why good works don’t earn salvationThe real meaning of being “born again” (John 3)The tension between God’s sovereignty and human responsibilityThe powerful illustration of the bronze serpent (Numbers 21)What it truly means to look to Jesus and be savedIf you’ve ever wondered:“Am I saved?”“Do I need to do something, or is it all God?”“Why would God save some and not others?”This episode tackles those questions head-on with biblical clarity.“The Bible never says people missed heaven because they wanted Jesus but weren’t chosen… it says they did not repent and believe.”Key Takeaway: Salvation is not about your merit—it’s about Christ’s finished work. Whether you’re moral, religious, broken, or lost… the call is the same: Look to Jesus and believe.

Nothing Mother Teresa did got her to glory. What Mother Teresa needs in regards to her standing before God is the same thing that the Milwaukee monster serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer needed. What's that? A miracle of God. And I think we lose sight of that. Or even personally, you may be wrestling with this saying. Maybe the reason I'm not born again is because God just hasn't done a miracle in my heart.

And I want him to, but he hasn't. And in a way where you dismiss your response. to look to Jesus Christ in faith. The Bible never says that sinners miss heaven because they wanted to turn to Jesus, but they were simply not elect. They don't go to heaven because it says they neglected a great salvation and did not repent and believe. Hank, how we doing?

I'm doing great, Johnny. How are you? Good. I like your shirt. Thank you. I need to address a little bit of controversy. I feel like we skated over real quickly, the voice memo point in, I don't know, a couple episodes back.

If you missed it, just that, hey, It's the 11th commandment. You can't send a voice memo over two minutes long in a text message. Okay, I found out. There's a lot of flack on that. I got, I'm getting people stopping me. Almost more than the crunchy episode. With regularity.

More to come on that. Yeah. But all I'm going to say is people can send voice memos as long as they like. They just need to know it's wrong to send anything over two minutes. Just know you're living in disobedience. Yeah, 100%. But, I mean, there's a person in our community group sending 20 minute plus voice. Mimos. I would block that number. I mean, that's in, I don't know if I could talk 20 minutes

uninterrupted on anything. You could. Yeah, you're right. I've heard you do it. Portillo's order. Drop here. Hey, what would be your last meal before you die in your... 25 minutes later. All right. What are we talking about today, Johnny? Hey, well, if I said the name Agnes Gunga Boajju, does that ring a bell? Of course. Yeah, well, she was born in Northern Macedonia in 1910. She's most commonly known by the name, Mother Teresa. I know that name. In many ways, she is the embodiment and was the embodiment of charity, humanitarian kindness. She opened homes for abandoned children. She opened AIDS, hospice centers. She fed the hungry. In 1971, which was before you were born and me, she was awarded the Peace Prize for humanitarian work, and she was given a $25,000 reward. And with that reward money, she used to

construct a new leper colony in Bangladesh. Then in 1979, she was awarded the Nobel Peace. Peace Prize. It comes with, I didn't know this, $192,000 reward. It's a very specific number. Yep. You know what she did with that? Bought Apple stock. No, she built shelters, hospitals, other humanitarian efforts. In 1999, a poll of Americans ranked her first in Gallup's most widely admired people of the 20th century. This is Mother Teresa. She was awarded accolades, including the jewel of India. And in 2016, she was declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. And I would just want to affirm her humanitarian efforts were respectable, commendable, and helpful to many. She sacrificed human luxuries, comforts to care for the downtrodden and the destitute.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Mother Teresa, is a beautified saint, which means other people can pray to God in her name, and Mother Teresa would potentially intercede on their behalf. but when a Catholic priest asked if she attempted to convert people, she replied this way, yes, I convert. I convert you to be a better Hindu or a better Muslim or a better Protestant or a better Catholic or a better Sheikh or a better Buddhist. Now, this statement is really confusing. To be honest, I don't know where Mother Teresa stands as it relates to her standing with Jesus Christ. I'm not sure if Mother Teresa is in glory.

It seems like that's confusing representation of the gospel. she may be a part of a merit-based religious system. But we can be sure of one thing. Nothing Mother Teresa did got her to glory. And I say that because she is the most admired person in the 20th century. And people say things like, hey, well, this person's so kind. They're like a mother Teresa. Or she's no mother Teresa.

Yeah, this person is a jerk. And I start that way, just to reference back the conversation that we've been talking about for the last couple episodes regarding Nicodagh. Nicodemus. Nicodemus, and Jesus is highlighting this to him, that all of his best efforts, all of Mother Teresa's best efforts, don't merit a single drop of the mercy of God. Maybe it's worth asking, could it be that Mother Teresa is included in Romans 3, where it says that there is not one righteous, not even one? Yes, it would be absolutely correct to say that. What does Mother Teresa need? Well, she needs exactly the same thing that Jeffrey Dahmer needed, who's

Jeffrey Dahmer. Well, if you remember, he was known as the Milwaukee monster. He killed and dismembered 17 young men, a murderer. But at the end of his life, he was baptized in prison, he repented of his sins, and he praised God that God could save him, the chief of sinners. And you know what? God can do that. He can save a serial killer. He could save a terrorist like the Apostle Paul. And this doesn't sit well with us, not that God can save sinners. But the fact that you could have a person like Mother Teresa with all of these accolades and achievements and recognition of her humanitarian kindness and everything she has done for the world not be in glory. And a Jeffrey Dahmer, who is a serial killer and a murderer who trusted in Jesus Christ alone, and he could

end up in glory, not because of anything they had done, but because he placed his faith solely and holy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, I mean, it flies in the face of our kind of meritocratic. We want everything based on the merits. And instead of a meritocracy, we live on a system fundamentally based not on our own merit, but based on Christ's merit alone and grace. Yeah, and it draws our attention to the fact that naturally speaking, we don't think we're really that bad. You know, Rocky, you know, told Apollo and the Rocky Belbo movies, you know, you ain't so bad, you know. And I think by nature, we don't think our problem of sin is that bad.

And when we think about it, in the eyes of the world, it makes no sense, and the eyes of just our hearts, naturally speaking, it makes no sense for there to be the possibility of a beautified saint in the eyes of the world to be in hell, potentially, and I don't know where Mother Teresa is, and a serial killer to become a citizen of heaven. But that's what God does. And it brings our attention to the fact that what Mother Teresa needs

in regards to her standing before God is the same thing that the Milwaukee monster serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer needed. What's that? A miracle of God. God needed to dispense no more power in saving a serial killer as he did the most admired woman of the 20th century. And I think we get this wrong because we think, oh, no, she's not so bad. But no, what's always necessary for salvation, whether or not you're the most recognized, beautified saint or a serial killer on death row is a miracle. of God, and I think we lose sight of that. Absolutely. Well, we lose sight of it, and in the same way, what we've been looking at over the last couple episodes is this seems to be the maiden point Jesus is driving it in this conversation

with Nicodemus. Yeah, Nicodemus has a lot of religion. He has a lot of virtue, a lot of generosity. He knows the answers, but he has no assurance that he is right with God. He is the most respected man in Israel, and yet he is likely the most anxious because he's starting to recognize that even though he is physically alive, he is spiritually dead. and Nicodemus, and we've been looking at this conversation in the last couple of weeks, and you guys can go back and listen to the previous episodes.

But he comes to Jesus, and he has this honoring salutation, you know, teacher, we know that you must come from God for no one can do the signs that you're doing unless God is with him. And Jesus totally disregards that statement, gets right to the heart of the matter and says, Nicodemus, unless a person is born again, he will not see the kingdom of God. He's just shattering Nicodemus's religiosity. He's saying, hey, what you really need here is not a new start. You need a new heart, as we've been mentioning. and Nicodemus is confused because by nature, we're trying to earn our way to God,

we're clawing our way to them. And then God doubles down, Jesus doubles down in verse 5 and says, you have to be truly, truly born of water and the spirit. And if not, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. We talked about that last episode. It just means that we need a cleansing, but we also need a transformation. This is not any short of a miracle. Hey, folks, one of the things that I've said often,

and Harry often says this to me is accountability is the friend of integrity. We live in a pornographic world, and it's really important. It's critical that we have different systems of accountability set up in our own life so that we would be able to honor the Lord with what we look at with our eyes. Personally speaking, I use accountable to you as a software and have different partners that keep me accountable. They can see what I'm looking at if anything raises a flag. And I want that because I do want to honor the Lord with whatever I consume on my devices.

I would encourage you if you don't have some sort of an accountability to check out accountable to you, If you use our code dial-in, that'll waive 25% off your first year of your subscription. You can check out more information about accountable to you on their website, accountable to you.com slash dial-in. Romans 1314 is really clear. Make no provision for the flesh. And as a man that wants to honor the Lord, and you may be a man or a woman or an old man or an old woman that wants to honor the Lord,

I would encourage you to get this accountability in your life so that you would be able to honor the Lord with what you look at on your devices. And we're not. You made the point, again, last episode, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but this is not a matter of us being in need of a small kind of state change, or we're not sick and being incrementally healed better, but I think you drove at the point of we have the same amount of participation in our salvation as Lazarus had.

And his resurrection. Yeah. No, we're dead, dead. And the last couple episodes, the main thrust has been God's sovereignty and salvation. It's a miracle of God. And we need to never lose side of this because this is kind of where that line of thinking, you know, my testimony is not that great. Well, no, biblically speaking, it's a miracle.

God has to do a work in your life. And we've been stressing the sovereignty of God and salvation. However, in this passage, and we'll talk more about this as we go on, after asserting God's sovereignty and salvation, Jesus is now going to stress to Nicodemus the urgency and necessity of human responsibility. And I want to pick up in the text and just continue on. And actually, can you turn with me to Numbers 21? And while you read, I'll keep going in the text.

Nicodemus said to him in John, chapter 3, verse 9, how can these things be? And Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? He's saying, how do you not understand that you need to be born again? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.

If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? Now, just bear with me. Hold on. Verse 13 of chapter 3. No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. So he's saying, you're not going to just climb a ladder to God. No, no. The only way you can get to God is if someone comes down.

And he's saying here that the son of man has descended. Now we come to John chapter 3, 14, and you cannot understand John 3.16 if you don't understand the two verses that preceded. John 3, 14, and 15. Jesus says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Now, Jesus is bringing Nicodemus' attention back to a story

that Nicodemus would have been very familiar with. He would have had memorized. He would have had a memorized. He knows everything. He says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. Now, this is not in Prince of Egypt, so it's not something people are super familiar with

as it relates to the life of Moses. Nicodemus is struggling as it relates to the point of entry and how I can be reconciled to God. He's not yet understanding that his best deeds of righteousness merit him nothing. And so Jesus draws his attention back to a story, a story that we need to understand. It's found in Numbers 21.

And I want to look first with you at the problem that we find there. Read Numbers 21 versus 4 and 5. Yeah, so it begins. Then they set out from Mount Hore by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom, and the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there's no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.

So God had delivered them out of the land of Egypt. He had displayed his miraculous power, the plagues, you know, everything you see in Prince of Egypt. Totally. Shut out. And they continued to express their dissatisfaction, they're impatient, and their critical, not only towards Moses, but God, and they're saying, why have you brought us out here to die? And it says they spoke against God.

This is rebellion. This is ultimately what all sin is, is rebellion. And as a result of this, keep going in the next verse. So Yahweh, the Lord, sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. Okay, just pause for a moment. So this, again, is the two verses prior to John 316. So it's always good to understand this in the context.

Jesus again said, just as Moses lifted up the serpents in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up. And we go back to Numbers 216, and it says that as a result of the people's rebellion and their sin, God sent an infestation of poisonous snakes. And it says in the text that their venom was like fire and many died. And I want you just to picture them there. They're writhing on the wilderness floor and they're dying. And potentially one amongst them was a physician,

but they could offer no help or potentially one amongst them was a pharmacist, but they could offer no help. Potentially one amongst them was a therapist, but they could offer no help. Nothing could be done about the infestation that was in their veins. And this is a picture, Jesus is saying, of our soul's condition.

The soul, Ezekiel 1820, that sins shall die. And it doesn't really matter, going back to our conversation with Mother Teresa, it doesn't matter how many times that an individual was bit by one of those snakes, where they were bit, how much they complained, every single person that bore the venom of the snake died.

And Jesus is pressing home to Nicodemus here. A more pressing, urgent, serious venom runs through your veins. And the inevitable conclusion, the destination is death. Your snake bit by the disease of sin. And you can't compare your bite with someone else's bite. It says here, they died. They died. And this is one of the realities that we come to biblically is Jesus is wanting Nicodemus to understand you're dead and your sin. You're already judged. Again, we'll get to this maybe next episode. John 318, he who believes in him

is not judged, but he who does not believe has been judged already. And you're in great need. And to your point, you having venom in your blood is like a state reality. You're driving it. It doesn't matter if you have a little bit of venom or a ton of venom, namely in the same way, no matter we're not sinning to the same extent as Jeffrey Dahmer or sinning less like Mother Teresa. It's not a directional thing. You touched on this last episode, but it's a state of existence before God. Yeah, it's your condition.

Jesus is saying to the most righteous man in Israel, the most well-known Pharisee, your snake bit. And so the question then is, what do we do about it? Yeah, so keep reading. Numbers 21-7. Then the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned because we've spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he may remove the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard.

And it will be that everyone who's bitten and looks at it will live. And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard. And it happened that if a serpent bit any man when he looked up to the bronze serpent, He lived. Okay, stop there for a moment. What's left unstated is that many people did in fact die. They didn't trust God's diagnosis, and therefore they didn't trust God's remedy. But just to ask the question, how many remedies did God provide in Numbers 21 to those who were snake bit?

One. One. And on the surface, it seems so simple, potentially absurd. But Jesus is saying here, just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. and the only people that were cleansed from the toxic venom within them was by looking to the serpent that he lifted up. The only way Nicodemus that you're ever going to be reconciled to God is by looking to the one who's going to be lifted up.

Who's that? Jesus. Jesus on the cross. And so he's drawing these parallels. And Nicodemus, you know, if you think about the story in number 21, it seems so foolish, like, why would God employ a snake on a pole as the means by which he cleansed people. But that's Paul's whole point.

You could ask the question, why would God save people by Jesus being lifted up on a cross in shame and humiliation? This is why Paul says, the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing. Nicodemus would have been inclined to try to do something else. And Jesus says, no, no, no, you just have to look to the one that's going to be lifted up.

Now, I want to, you know, one thing before we move on, it brings me back to Isaiah 45, verse 22, look to me and be saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God. There's only one remedy for the problem of sin, and it's to look to Jesus. But really, really I want to go is for two weeks, two episodes, we've been stressing the sovereignty of God and salvation. However, after five times declaring that someone needs to be born from above, Jesus says you have to be born from above, there's nothing you contribute to your salvation.

Seven times in the following verses, we are going to read the emphasis of believing in Jesus. Now in our minds and in the text, there appears to be a contradiction or an incompatibility because Jesus, and we touched on this for two weeks in a row, Nicodemus, there's nothing you can do, nothing you can do. And then right after that, he repeatedly emphasizes, you must believe, you must believe.

98 times throughout John's gospel, we read that emphasis of faith and belief. And John wrote the entire gospel, John 2031, these things I'm writing to you so that you may believe. So on the one hand, you have this doctrine of divine sovereignty. Something has to happen to you. But on the other hand, within the same chapter, within the same conversation, you have this doctrine of human responsibility. And it leaves us guessing which one is it?

Totally. And it's such an important point. I just want to underscore because I feel like we'll look at from time to time at comments. And people's pushback will be like, okay, but you're presenting a false gospel. You're presenting only one half of the equation. If it's all a work of God, then what am I supposed to do? And is there any implication or application for my own life? Yeah.

Yeah, if you're going to ask the question, do I need to be born again? Or do I need to respond in faith and look to Jesus Christ? What's the answer? Yes. Yes, yes. God is sovereign and man is responsible. And we have to address this tension because we see it running parallel throughout the scripture. And there are ditches, though, on both sides.

and I want to address those as it relates to the theological road. One ditch would be to elevate the sovereignty of God in salvation to the degree that I would refer to it as hyper-Calvinism, meaning that, okay, God's going to save him he's going to save. We don't really need to do anything about it. We don't need to plead with sinners to turn to Jesus Christ because at the end of the day, God's going to do what he's going to do. The other would be to elevate man's responsibility in the sense that you go like, you're paranoid in the sense, like even for me as a preacher, just thinking like if I thought that everyone's eternal destiny was dependent upon my preaching.

That would be a very crippling thought. Or even personally, you may be wrestling with this saying. Maybe the reason I'm not born again is because God just hasn't done a miracle in my heart. And I want him to, but he hasn't. And in a way where you dismiss your responsibility to look to Jesus Christ in faith, and therefore you blame the hardness in your heart towards God or on God, rather than the man in the mirror. And I would want to just stress this reality

and then jump in Hank. God is totally sovereign, but the responsibility of disbelief always lies in the hand of the center and not on God. For example, you read so many times in the book of Exodus that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, but then you read just as many times

that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Pharaoh will not meet God face to face and say, I had no other option. You hardened my heart. it is always the responsibility of the individual and what they do with God so that no one can meet God face to face and say I had no other option. So what I hear you saying is one ditch is to inflate God's sovereignty so much so that there's no room left for human responsibility. On the flip side, you can inflate human responsibility so much that you actually do away with God's sovereignty, an immutable attribute of who he is. But then the other point I hear you saying, which is more maybe fine-tuned but worth bringing to the forefront, is it's also not 50 this, 50 that.

You seem to be saying it's 100% both in parallel held out for us very clearly throughout Scripture. Yeah, and if you're going to err on one side, I would err on elevating the sovereignty of God rather than human responsibility. But for example, and I just said this, but it's worth reiterating, the Bible never says that sinners miss heaven because they wanted the turn to Jesus, but they were simply not elect. they don't go to heaven because it says they neglected a great salvation and did not repent and believe. Now, when the apostles are asked, what must I do to be saved? They do not respond and say, be born again. They respond by saying what? Repent.

Repent and believe. Why? Because although we stress and affirm God's sovereignty and salvation that it is entirely a miracle, we also affirm the parallel truth that man is responsible to place his faith. in Jesus, and we see that not only in John 3, but we see it in John 6. For example, it says in John 637, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out, meaning that everybody that is saved is a love gift from the Father to the Son. 644 says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will

raise him up on the last day. This is God is sovereign. However, we have to read that in harmony with chapter 647. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. This is back and forth, back and forth in the same Bible, in the same chapters, in the same conversations, and the same messages.

And our inability to grasp these twin truths only goes to represent and reflect our fallenness. I like what Jay Hi Packer says. And before I read this packet quote, this is what you see over and over again. Acts 2, Jesus was delivered over by the predetermined plan of God, but you killed them.

Meaning like, so were they responsible or was this God's plan? Both. Packer says, the Creator has told us that he is both a sovereign Lord and a righteous judge. And that should be enough for us. Why do we hesitate to take his word for it? Can we not trust what he says? Packer says, a God whom we can understand exhaustively and whose revelation of himself confronted us with no mysteries whatsoever would be a God and man's image and therefore an imaginary God, not the God of the Bible at all. people like tidy theology

what I mean by that is well God is it's either God sovereign or man is responsible and Packer says you want a God that confronts you with zero mystery that you can put in this little bubble and that's not the way it works Packer refers to this as an

intemone meaning it seems like a contradiction not an enemy I saw your smirk and I knew that I said that I knew that you went to finding a name child Yeah. Come out.

We're talking deep theology. And I said intemone and you went, it's not a paradox. It's an anemone. An antinamy, which is a truth. A paradox is, Paul says, he is sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Okay, it's like, okay, we kind of understand

what he's saying there. Two things at odds that actually can be harmonized. Harmonized together. And antinomie is something that we actually struggle to reconcile, but we're going to talk about that more. We don't need to really reconcile this at all. So if you talk to an Armenian, not an Armenian, an Armenian who stresses that side of human responsibility, an Armenian's concern would be that people really need to hear the gospel. And he begins to rightly engage in aggressive evangelism. He wants to make sure the gospel is clear and

powerful, but he may, on a quest to reach the lost, forget that salvation is always an entire a work of God. And then he may see that God is using him and begin to think that he is indispensable to the work of God and think God's work would collapse without me. Now, talk about a hyper-Calvinist for a moment. He would rightly declare and affirm the sovereignty of God. What's his concern? He doesn't have one because he would justify potentially his inactivity and passivity and proclaiming the gospel by affirming that God's going to save him who he's going to save anyway. and he rightly affirms that God doesn't need him, but he doesn't realize my neighbors do and the people around me.

The doctrine of God's sovereignty is grossly applied if it either results in a magnified sense of my own importance or a diminished sense of the urgency and priority as it relates to pleading with sinners. And this is why sometimes people are either or, but Spurgeon says, say we don't know who the elect are. They don't have yellow stripes running down their back.

That's why we plead with everyone. And we're just kind of wrestling through this. I don't even like calling it attention, these twin truths that we find in the scripture. I think it's worth distilling knowing you. You're not characterizing the Armenian or the hyper Calvinist with any kind of sense of lack of charity. There's going to be a bunch of people on both sides who say,

no, you're actually misrepresenting my side because I'm actually right. The point you're saying here very clearly is both of the, these truths are presented irrefutably throughout scripture. Again, we've said this many times, not just in different places in the Bible, not just in the same book of the Bible, not just in the same chapter of the Bible. The same conversation. And the same verses. A hundred percent. And so it's just, I want to preemptively get out in front of like, we're not trying to belittle someone's position when you articulate the weakness from which. Just the way you pronounce an enemy. Leave me. No, we're not. And I think there can be weaknesses on both sides of, there's

ditches on both sides, right? Which is not, the answer is not diminish your view of the other side. The answer, to your point, is actually you need to preach and elevate to yourself. They're both true. Both realities that are held out by Jesus. In Romans 9, God says, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. You're like, okay, that settles it.

Verse 16. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God, who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name I be proclaimed throughout the whole world.

So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires. Now you would get to the end of chapter nine of Romans and be like, bro. Case closed. Case closed. God's going to have mercy on whom he has mercy.

Why on earth do I need to plead with sinners to be reconciled God when this is balls in God's court, you know, do what you want God. I'm a happy observer of your providence. But the next chapter is, you know, Romans 109, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Okay, that's great. Romans 1013, whoever calls in the name of the Lord will be what? Saved. Okay, next verse. How are they going to call on him whom they've never heard? You want to know the answer to that?

They won't. How will they believe unless someone's sent? How are they going to preach unless they're sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news? Meaning Paul gets to this, I mean, no one understood the sovereignty of God in salvation better than Paul. And then in the next chapter, he's saying, well, how are they going to believe in him if you don't go tell them? And so I think that there's this, you know, you can be a Romans 10 person or you can be a Romans 9 person. these are truths that we need to marry together.

And you may be asking, how do we reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility? The answer is, we don't. We recognize them as parallel truths in the scripture. You know, one time someone, Spurgeon was asked, how do you reconcile these realities of God's sovereignty and human responsibility as it relates to salvation? And he says, you don't need to reconcile friends.

God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are not adversaries. they're not annoying cousins they are friends and they're revealed plainly in the word of God there is a level of tension there but I like what Packer says he says how do we avoid both extremes

as it relates to this tension and he says by making it our business to believe both these doctrines with all of our might and do not qualify modify or water down either one of them meaning the sovereignty of God you preach it and you affirm it

the human responsibility of responding in faith to Jesus Christ, Jesus himself says, he pleads with sinners, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sin. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that he implores, he begs sinners on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God. And so we, he says, believe both of these truths, not kind of, with all of your might. And I love that. There's so many different routes we could take this. One that leaps out to me is for the people who maybe are less saying,

like, yeah, but that's just hard. I feel like you're just doing an intellectual jujitsu or you're not actually answering the question. One, I would just posit for them to think about, what do we do with the fact that our Lord's Savior, Jesus Christ, is fully man and fully God? There are these realities in scripture that do go past our own intellectual ability

to perfectly make sense of them, and yet we are called to believe them wholeheartedly. Another point, maybe just worth calling out that I'd never had occurred to me until you took us back to numbers, is there. There's even a beauty in numbers in that there's one bronze serpent lifted up. Yeah.

The fact that it's lifted up does not save all of Israel. You made this point, but we blew by it. And people are still called to look, but they're not called to look at anything of their so choosing. There's one serpent and there's one action that saves them. And it's looking upon that lifted up figure that saves them. And looking to Jesus. And, you know, even going back to what you said about intellectual jiu-jitsu, You know, Paul responded to the question, you know, wait, which one is it? Make it clear.

Right after he says, God will have mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires, you know what Paul says? He says, you will say to me then, why does God still find fault? Who can resist his will? He's asking a question that has persisted for the last 2,000 years. Well, if God's sovereign, then how can he hold someone responsible? And this is in Romans 9. Yeah, and then Paul responds in Romans 920 and says, who are you, oh man? you're the pot. You don't get to talk to the potter.

And I love that. He says, does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath, he's just saying, begging the question, God can do whatever he wants. It echoes of Job, of, all right, gird your loins.

Where were you when God answers in scripture? Yeah, it's like, oh, well, God needs to make sense to me. And Paul goes, does he? Does he need to make sense to you? You're a created being. confirm the dust and to dust you're going to go back and you want to understand the infinite mind of god who places the stars in the sky it's a ridiculous assertion that we can wrap our mind around god and you know one thing that you know obviously i wholeheartedly affirm the sovereignty of god and

salvation i think going back to i like what you said about intellectual judicious i think people sometimes want to have a god that makes sense in evangelism and so they feel like they have to you know they're going to get someone's going to move a pawn in the chess game and say well if god is good and loving and powerful Why does he allow sin in the world? Yeah, why does he allow sin in the world? And this question of like, this is the problem of evil, the Achilles heel of theology. Your move, check. Yeah, and you have to memorize an answer.

Listen, this is just what the Bible teaches. And you don't need to be apologetic for what is really plain in the Word of God. I'm not saying that by it being plain that it's easy to understand. I'm saying, listen, I don't understand how this works, nor did any reformer, nor did anyone, like, you just, you confess. I think it was Martin Luther who says, I confess the mystery. but I don't explain it. Meaning I'm just recognizing. And listen, if I came to a passage

on the sovereignty of God and salvation, I'm going to preach it. And on Easter Sunday, when I preach about the responsibility for people to respond, I'm going to preach it. And where those two things intersect, the Bible never clarifies.

And I want you to know, I'm totally fine with that. And it's liberating once you just go, listen, I don't have to understand everything about God. That's not me punting as if it's fourth and 40

and I'm backed up against my own one yard line, it's just me saying, if the Apostle Paul didn't understand this fully and just said, this is who God is, then I think we should be as well. And maybe just to wrap us into close, I mean, that's reason 1,746,

if it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian. Sure. But maybe for a specific listener who's saying, okay, I've been tracking along, maybe listen to the last couple episodes, and they say, I fully affirm God's sovereignty and the need for him to regenerate,

make new my heart. Yeah. I confess with my mouth that Jesus says, Lord, that he's raised him from the dead. How do I actually know that I'm saved? We've repeated, we've come to this time and time again, but I think it's always worth revisiting. What would you say to that person who questions at the end of the episode?

Okay, but am I one who's saved? It's a longer, you know, it's its own episode, but I would say in brief, if I'm talking to someone on an elevator, I would ask him if they truly love the Lord Jesus Christ. Have they placed their faith in Jesus, his finished work, and do they love Jesus? Part of that is because the only way that you can love Jesus is if you've been given regenerated affections. And that is the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And so there are fruits of transformation, like obedience. But then the question that's always, well, how do I know if my obedience is enough? And so I've said it here probably a few times, but it's about the direction of our life, not the perfection of our lives. But I think sometimes, and it's maybe worth its own episode, people are wanting some sort of radical, like Damascus Road moment. And again, I come back to it and just say, I never had that moment. I've never heard God speak to me audibly. I've never had this echelon that I've been ushered into or I was taken from a mediocre Christian to like a super serious one. God has continued to refine me.

And I would say, I have more assurance of my salvation now than I did six months ago. And I say that, like, candidly just to say to like, just real candid, I have a prayer list. And it's things I've been praying every morning. And one of the things I've been praying every morning is that God, I'm looking at my notes, that God would give me great confidence in my adoption, that I belong to him. And that's a prayer God answers. And so the Holy Spirit testifies within us that we are children of God in Romans 8. And we need the time to listen to his voice and to be nearer to him. And so you could look at all these external things, but it's simple enough for, hey, look to Jesus Christ, you know, just like Moses and the serpent.

Look to Jesus, trust in him alone. And you could get into all the demons believe in shudder and all that stuff. But that's why R.C. Sprole once asked the question, well, do you love Jesus at all? I'm not saying you love them perfectly, but do you love them at all? Well, if you love them at all, that's the demonstration that God has changed your heart. That's a freeing reality. Thank you, Johnny. Thanks, Hank.