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

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Predestination. Election. Free will. Calvinism. Arminianism. Few theological conversations generate more questions—or stronger opinions. So what does the Bible actually say, and how should Christians respond when faithful believers reach different conclusions? Pastors Carlos and Paul begin in 2 Timothy 2 with a practical conversation about spiritual grit, discipline, and the difference between simply trying to follow Jesus and intentionally training to become more like Him. Then they dive into one of Christianity’s most debated subjects: how God’s sovereignty, election, human responsibility, salvation, and evangelism fit together. Rather than ignoring the difficult passages or pretending every mystery has an easy answer, they examine the tension Scripture itself presents and explain why Christians can hold strong convictions without allowing secondary theological disagreements to divide them. In this episode: • What the soldier, athlete, and farmer teach us about following Jesus  • Why spiritual growth requires rhythms and relationships  • What “election” and “predestination” actually mean  • The difference between Calvinism and Arminianism  • How God’s sovereignty and human responsibility fit together  • Whether predestination means God chooses people for hell  • Who Jesus died for and the debate over limited atonement  • Why belief in election should never weaken evangelism  • How Christians can disagree strongly without dividing  • Why difficult theology should ultimately produce humility, gratitude, and greater trust in God Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment HAT 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

For a Calvinist, the mystery is in the past, for an Armenian, 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 637, 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, Livfrey 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 a live host 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,

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 Orozzo. And today I'm excited because I'm here with the one and only Chad G. Paul Cee, the Epistle Missile, Paul Cunningham. What is?

I mean, I haven't heard of Epistle Missile in forever. I like it, bro. I feel like, yeah, 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 seem to 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 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 predestined people to hell? He leaves and then we get to cover that by ourselves. So today we're going to go 2nd Timothy chapter 2. And right? Yeah. 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 ever. hated, 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 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.

They were 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 what is. 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. Both. We'll get there. I'm getting too far ahead of us. Keep going to excited. So we're going to go predestination. We're going to specifically talk about Calvinism versus Armenianism. 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. We have, 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, man. At some point, we need to. Because usually we're, 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 disagree. Yes, there are those two. And we learn from each other. Yes, we do. I don't know about you. But we're going to go frequently shouted questions on predestination in hell

that we have not answered yet on the pod. What? What was that? I just laugh 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, like, I know what you believe, bro. That was not a backhanded conflict.

No, you just said. You literally said, yes, that's correct. I learned so much from you, Carlos. I know, that is not what I said at all. That's okay, Paul. I learned so much from you Carlos. I love you. I love you.

I don't, 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. Oh, goodness. Here we go. We're going to be answering frequently shatter 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? Yeah. 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 Rootet, 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 part of our church and are not yet plugged into a rooted group, you need to. And so 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 are 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 8. Also, if you are part of the Liffrey Nation and ever want to come and take a selfie with Pastor Paul, because 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 signing people's like, you know, forearms and their Bibles.

You signed any bibles, bro? No, I don't. It's okay. It's okay. I don't. 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.

It's 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 to my name or something like that. I don't know. It just feels weird. That's such a Calvinism. I don't know how those two relate. I already throwing labels already. You're a very humble guy.

Okay. But now, anyways. Okay. So if you ever want to get a self-repanism. with Shagipasi, you can. You can come and visit us at any part of our, any of our locations. We love to meet you in person. Am I omnipresent?

Multiple campuses, right? I do. There you go, that's important. 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 comment hat to in the comments right now on Spotify and YouTube. bro, are you okay? I'm 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 cameras. We just bates 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 shall see.

We're just getting started here. But, oh, yeah, so yeah, comment hat, is that what you're saying? That's right. And then also to let people know,

because 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. Yeah, I think it's somewhere back over there. And we're going to wait because we feel like we probably shouldn't choose the name. We asked people to comment on the different names.

We probably shouldn't choose that without Pastor Josh. Have ever killed a bear? I have not. I have. I have a shot a bear one time. You did? Yeah. I was in Washington State.

Well, yes, I do. Why do you have animals, all kinds of animals? I like deer and elk and, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Most of our livery audience is probably really cool without us. I wish I to know we were talking about this. I would have gotten a picture in like the bearclaw. How big one of the stuff?

It was a decent good size. It was a decent good size. That looks like a small bear. Yeah, it kind of does like a small bear. Hope that was not a cub. Pastor Josh would probably not appreciate that. I probably would not. But anyways.

So yeah, so we will decide that next week when he is back. That's right. We would decide it. And if you want some merch, so you don't have to actually wait for the giveaway. You can just go to live free. shop or text the word hat to 20411 and you can literally we have a merch shop available for you thank you for subscribing and liking everybody and also to download the lake point 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 app to 20411 or go to apple or google play store hey uh did you have anything else oh yeah i was going to i was actually going to ask you we were talking beforehand hey if you've 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 true. I've literally read the Bible my whole life and I literally just found about this hidden historical detail in the book of Jonah. Okay. And 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. 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 blow your mind. So Nineveh is actually the capital of the Assyrian empire. So if you know a little bit about the culture, Mesopotamian back in the day, it would be a polytheistic culture, which means that they would have a lot of different gods, little G, pagan

gods, that they would worship. And there's this one particular god, this is historical, you can look it up, called O'Anus. 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. Yeah, man. This is a photo right here. So that right there is the visual depiction of this pagan god, Owannis.

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 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 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 remember. repent, he will destroy us in judgment. And so that's amazing. One, that's 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. Yes. And so from the very beginning, God in his sovereignty and 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 rebellion 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 to you and me, Romans chapter 8 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. That's right.

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, I thought 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 have, like 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. 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 and because that he is able to take our worst decisions

or the worst moments of our life and use them for our good in his glory. It's just such a beautiful thing, man. That's great news. That's 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 at 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 talked about three things. One, a soldier who endure 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 said before us because we have reason. 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 a, 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 to it, hey, man, slow down and, like, marinate in this.

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. Again, that's my little weird peep that I have.

But yeah, it's like, slow down. Like that idea. Don't get too mad, bro. Yeah, whatever. The idea of marinating, sorry, is that usually. like, man, you want to sit in it and because then that's when you get to flavor. 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 the idea of man, if you sit in and soak it up, there's more there. And one of the things that stuck out to me from these three images was the idea of the athlete in training. You know, it says

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, you were playing in the Super Bowl and deflated the ball so it was easy to grip when it was cold outside to Tom Brady and sorry 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 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 oh come on that's awesome 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 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 it my hardest. You had to swear by like, hey, these games are about to be really intense and you've got to swear that you have been training because 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 ultramarathon you and i could right now go and try to bench pressed 500 pounds not happening well maybe you could do the 500 i know 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 you mean that one time somebody okay go ahead go ahead are you saying speaking of not you're not you're saying speaking of not competing according to the rules. Is that the accusation that you just gave? No, I will not do about accusation. I have heard some people say that. I will. You let them be your defenders. You don't need to defend it. That's right. That's right. Someone may have got or may not have gotten a

head start when you arm wrestled past your gosh. Anyways, anyways, so where was I at? I lost my whole train of thought right there. You need to train. Yeah, yet 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 ultramarathon are able to press 500 pounds or pick any other kind of things instead the idea of training is it is usually 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 try to bench press let's just not say 500 that's silly like to say 300 pounds you may be able to i can't i could maybe get close to it in terms of one way 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 to overtime I can gain strength. I'm eventually going to come to 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 at God, 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 you need to have.

That's good. I believe that I'll say that again, the life you want to live lives on the other side of 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 in prayer, regularly attending corporate worship. Relationships are what we talked about a week or two ago and Pastor Josh about the need for of 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. That's good. 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 other 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. And 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 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 athlete, that you have to, 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. I do not hate him. Okay. Hold on.

He's just not the number one player of all time. That's fine. That's true. That's true. It's fine. Thank you. 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 count it. I've heard the same kind of thing. But the point is, I'm sure he spends something on his body. This is trainers, recovery, nutrition, and it makes sense because he's an athlete. Yes. And so he's 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. It's good. Kobe Bryant was famous for, it was one of my favorite all-time players. He was famous for starting his daily training at 4 a.m. 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, man, that's what a Christian is called to do. That's not super Christians.

Nope. That's every disciple. Hey, focus. Maintain intentionality in your rhythm. 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 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, you know, do I have to go to church? Do I have to do these? And like, 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?

they're not asking those questions. They're saying, man, 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? It'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 I remember Pastor Josh, they're 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're talking about your Bible knowledge or, man, being better, like, better or 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 factories 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 grow 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 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 easier 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 Second Timothy. One of my favorite things in Second Timothy is at the end when he's asking for these people to visit him. 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 the 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 script. little fragments or maybe a little leaflet of scripture, which is interesting because he's written now his last letter,

the Second Timothy is his last letter he's ever going to 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 going to die. He's like, why do you want scripture? And it goes back to something he said all the way back in Philippines, which he at one point said, I want to know Christ. And when he said that in Philippines,

he'd already known him again for over 20 or 25 years. So party knew Christ and that more than almost any of us ever will, probably any of, more than any of us ever will in this lifetime, he knew him. But he wanted more. And I think that was his heart to his dying day. So it was dying day. It's like, I want to encounter God in scripture as much as I can. So bring me those into my dying breath. I want to 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 that God had for him.

So this is so helpful to me even like, man, I got to 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 all 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. It's great. 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 6, verse 9, which by the way, we don't have time for this, but this verse verse, man, seasons where I feel like, I'm not seeing results and God, you call me to do this. And, you know, 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're ready to get to the real fun one for today? Yeah, man. So I got the Bible here. I'm going to read it.

And then we're going to jump up. from that passage to talk about predestination. You want to do that? Yeah, because again, just setting the table for people, as 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, well, all 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 great. And specifically about filling your mind with God's word. So he's saying here, hey, keep thinking on what I said, and 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 a lot. But you read that verse force? Or it can bless them. Or 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 2 verse 8 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 going to talk about predestination, election, Calvinism, and Armenianism. Let me give you a quick story, Paul. Well, Helleifri 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.

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So I grew up in assemblies of God in the church. Did you know that? I thought you, so you might, you've got more of a diverse background than you. You always make fun. So I thought you were Catholic. Initially. Yeah, you were born and raised,

Baptist baby, baptized the baby, so Catholic. But eventually, long term, I ended up. Full on Pentecostal. Full on, assemblies of God. Charismatic. Dude, you've had a journey, man. Bro, I do. That's amazing.

So, so I, you know. Yeah, keep going. 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 shame 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, very reformed area and university.

And to be honest, I never heard of this idea of predestination, thought this way. and part of me when I started reading theology and learning theology 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 Paul saying

when you look at every single part of the body? which is by the way everywhere in the Bible. Yes. It's not just one particular spot. This whole idea of election, predestination, it's all over 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, chose you, I chose you around 10 times, and around 7 to 8 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 reformed Roman Pentecostalian. You're just, you've got a very unique story. But I love it. I love all the different experiences you've had. But yeah, to your point, know, even like, we'll get into this here, maybe even a little bit, because maybe 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 what is that all? How do we all get into? But part of I just want to go to say, while 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 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 or 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, I'll ask you, Carlis, am I ever going to fully understand my wife? Never. Heck no. Heck no, I will never.

By the way, it's true of her with me too. We try. We pursue. 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 flinch. Like, I just forget about it. It's not important.

I'm like, man, like, no, 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 and for us as well. And so, man, it matters. It matters. 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 we should dive into things like this.

Now, it may be good for me to kind of slow down and even explaining people like what this word elect means, maybe what the debate is over. Please do. A couple views on in as well. And then we can talk about a little bit more of again, like, why does this matter? 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 right again,

really just means chosen. So it says, I endure everything for the sake of the chosen. Now, what does that mean? Because, like, that can throw people off. It's like, wait a second, like, God chose me? Does that mean I not have a choice? Or, like, I do have choices. I do have free.

Like, how does this all go together? And there's a bunch of different viewpoints, but really it comes down to two primary ones. It was called unconditional election or unconditional choosing and then conditional election, conditional choosing. So we actually got 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 will even get into today. I'm going to 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 Calvin.

There is 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 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 through 5, the idea of God chose this before the foundation of the world. John 644, Jesus. Again, it's not just the Apostle Paul and it's not drunk up. 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 9 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 Armenianism. 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. Like, God doesn't predestine those who would believe in those who would. Nah, 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.

Okay. He would see, God looks ahead and because he's outside of time. So it's not even, I don't know, to say he looks ahead because he just simply is outside of time. But still, for the lack of it. 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. Okay. So instead, whereas the other conditional 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 for knowledge. For knowledge. 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, and Armenian 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 1st Peter 1, 1 through 2, where it talks about how God does predestine, but based it says on foreknowage.

Similar Romans 8. It says the word, four knowledge. Yeah, Romans 829 is that where you kind of have was called often the golden chain. For those God forenew, he also predescent. So in Armenia would say, hey, see, four knowledge comes first. And then predestination. Also a big one, and this sounds simple, but it's actually a really big deal. And I think it's helpful if you're out there and you're a Calvinist to remember this.

Like, John 316 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 going to 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. just doesn't seem a loving God would do unconditional election. So those are the difference between the two views. There's a bunch of other things that we got to 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 reform theology, I was taught unconditional, or I started reading about unconditional election. So where are you now? I am a Bible guy. Oh, what a, what a, what a cop-out. No, it's not, it's not. No, I definitely lean unconditional election.

So you lean, so you're not like, because we'll get into this in a little bit. We will. 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.

Unconditional 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 love these labels because 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. But you do. So, Paul, tell me why are you a Calvinist? Why do you assume? I'm not assuming. I know it. I'm just messing with you.

Oh, goodness. Well, hey, let me see how much. So, like, you know. You're a Calvinist. Yes. Well, if you put a label on it. Put a label on it. Okay, go ahead.

Oh, wow. Shots fired. Okay, we're already going there. No, man. And again, when people were listening to this, Carlos and I love each other. We agree beforehand. We're going to 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 going to play devil's African a bit of how we can talk about this. They're calling our minions a devil. No, how not. I'm saying you're going to play devil's a. Okay. Say, look at this is what I'm talking about. Anyways, now, 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 think we just like each other.

Like, we're trying to model more loving, grace-filled conversations around this. But yeah, yes, I am. But here's what I would tell people, 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 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. Experientially, I would see both. And what I mean by that is, I would hear people who are very big into free will and our minion 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. Well, we do. Yeah.

Everybody does. Everybody. And so I went back and forth. And so probably in my mid-20s, it became pretty firm in what I believe, very firm in what I believe. That being said, what I love about the journey God had me on

is it has filled me with a lot of grace for both sides, 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'm 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 are 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 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 Calvinists, some that are Armenians. 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 gonna 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. Now, if somebody's listening right now and be like, oh man, is this like one of those like super geeky theological, you know, kind of conversations? Well, here's why it matters. Yes. Multiple reasons.

One, we, 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 to honestly, like how you live your life. Oh, yeah. And this can really trip people up. Like I had an intern when I was working at one church who came to me, and he hadn't slept in days. 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, 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 it enough. And I'm not saying enough. And then it's all on me. And he literally lost sleep. So part of what he wants to do that. to help people do in this is because it's 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. 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 if I'm honest, I don't love some of these labels like Calvinism, our meaning of the same again, because how about we just read the Bible? And then we accept what the process. 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 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. It's no way around it. It's no way around it. Let me show you this first meme to illustrate that. It says, when an Armenian sees the word predestined in scripture and he goes like, oh, don't be that guy. Thanks, Patrick Stewart. 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. Yeah. Again, Paul uses the word over and over again around 23 times. Jesus uses the word, he says, I chose you like 10 times. Then 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, Romans, sorry, Ephesians chapter one. You mentioned that 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 a, option 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. Yeah, and by the way, in that Ephesians 1, which is such a beautiful passage, people should go and read. It talks about the benefits of salvation, election, the idea of God chose.

That word is he elected before in predestination. It's a good thing in that passage. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. The whole point is, it's like 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 got to mean. Election, as mentioned 30 times in the Bible.

Oh, it must mean free will. I think that's actually Jacobus Arminis. I'm pretty sure. Pretty sure that's it. 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. Yes.

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. Yeah.

So what a lot of people will do is they'll pin, this verse against that verse, and they said, 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. We don't, again, we don't grab Jesus' words and pin it against the old. We just don't do that.

We receive the Word of God as is. And so, again, there is, 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 literally the next point. Some of that's a mystery, but I want to get, I want to show people that this isn't just putting 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 human responsibility. So if you're watching this on YouTube or any of the place where 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 or 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 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 and they spend, not okay. Not cool. 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.

They're responsible 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 a life for you of many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. No, 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, Acts chapter four. And when they're praying, they said, for truly in the city they were gathered against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed both Herod, Planchus 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. You know, that's the Paul Cunningham translation kind of thing. So they are holding them response for their decisions. Now let's see what happens. Go to the next slide. For truly necessary, they'd gather 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.

That's right. It's not something we're going to be able to explain this side of heaven or even on the other side of heaven because we're not God. It's there. Listen, these things are not mysteries. We're solved. There's 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 Armenianism, though. 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 like 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 mean you should want to know about it. What we're more saying is, hey, there's a level to where we're never going to be able fully understand it. It doesn't mean that we can't then live our lives.

We can't. Number four, it is not worth dividing over. Yeah, yeah. 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 first tier issues. Then there's secondary issues. Things that are what I believe is Romans 14, disputable matters. Yeah. Things that we can disagree on these, but we don't have to divide over these things.

That's right. 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 is funny. You know what?

I was going to ask you, you know why it's funny? Because it's true. Because it's true. And I will say this, man. I won't 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 reform theology, where 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 she's like oh that's there's no way and I'm just kind of like bye showing her here's scripture scripture trying to get her and uh and then she starts crying oh you jerk and I'm like oh oh this is uh I'm

hurting her and you know and so that was that was that was a good wake up call for me because I'm like, man, 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 a, 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,

I'm sorry because I was just trying to win an argument. And that superseded my Christian responsibility to love you. That's exactly right. And so that's a watch out. We are not here to, you know, it's not worth dividing over. We're not here to fight and win our. 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? Number five, it is deeply encouraging. Yes. Here's the meet. The Calvinist is never late nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he was predestined to. That's exactly.

That's a funny joke. 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's still saved sinners like you and me. Yeah. That's the whole point. Yeah.

That's grace. Like, you have been chosen by him, not because you deserve it. 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 others.

It is not fair that God chose you and me. 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. And this reality should produce in us not pride because I know better,

about humility and 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, if you was evangelism. Yes, it does. Which would be probably, we're answering some of the objections here. Yes, it does. 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, 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 him. 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 longer. He labors longer. He fights harder. He was evangelist. Yeah.

He's empowered. Yeah. And so, man, I love this too. From one, if you are, every Christian is called to share their faith, by the way. 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 tell them. Yeah. Go to your friend. Let me, yeah, we can go ahead and like, we can jump in on this one, then we can jump into some of the other objections. As we call them frequently shouted questions.

That's right. Not asked. Shounded 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 some of these.

It's going to be so great. But before we get that, 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 it. But one I do is like, well, hey, if this is true, then what's the, there's no point in an avenger's in it or destroy it. And that's not true. In fact, what I love to do to show this is I like to put a picture up of different Calvinists and Armenians that are famous throughout history, specifically preachers and movement leaders throughout history. And so I've actually got actually got a slide for us. And I don't have labels on them, by the way. I'll just give you some of the names. In the top left, you got a guy named Jonathan Edwards, one of the primary preachers in the first great awakening. I mean, literally just percentage wise.

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 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 and generations to come. Top, you got Lemuel Haynes, who was actually the first African-American ordained minister. He was a Puritan and just saw all incredible things through his ministry.

Got Vody Bakum on the bottom. This guy, and first thing, he passed away over the past year, preached to tens of thousands. I preached the gospel, 10s of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. It's absolute legend. I believe he played football at the University of Georgia, I think. He looks like it. Yeah, he's a big dude. But yeah, just incredible preacher, incredibly used by God, saw tons of people get saved

this ministry. To his right, we got, you know, just a little guy named Charles had in Spurgeon. You know, arguably the first megachurch pastor ever. like this guy like they had to go to a massive theater to can like to hold all the people that his ministry was reaching like the preachers thousands and thousands and thousands of people preached all the time like insane you got in the top right john wesley uh one of the founders of methodism just went all over the placing and you can trace literally the salvation of millions of people through the methodist denomination um i know they've gone a little astray recently but in the early days it was

amazing and even there's some some great methodists today but literally because this man And in the bottom of you got Miguel Nunez, who is in Latin America. You know him? Look at you, bro. Do you know him? Yeah, I'm not personally. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

I was surprised you put him in there. Awesome great. So again, all these guys have been greatly used. So here's my question. Based on the description I just gave it, who's the Calvinist and who's the Armenian? Not based on what you know, just based on what I said. Oh, I have no idea. Yeah, yeah.

And that's the point. None of them are. So you got Jonathan Edwards is a Calvinist, Finney is an Armenian. Bachim is a Calvinist. Haynes is a Calvinist. Haynes is a Calvinist. and then John Wesleyan's Armenian. I put more Calvinists in there to make a point.

Nunez is for sure Calvinists. I put more Calvinists in there to make a point. Like, hey, guys, 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. And number two, those are 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 Armenian. But then when I hear how you pray, and you're talking about, oh, God, would you change these people hearts and sovereignly 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 your go to almost make people confused about where you

stand by how you live your life because you're keeping the tensions of scripture in place. All right, all this being said, 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 gonna get you yeah and he does and so uh in his sovereignty God stops Paul literally wherever he's going, he stops and says, hey, now you're mine.

But I don't want to. You're mine. Yeah. Literally, he didn't 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 the good news. Ephesians too says that apart from Christ, we're dead in sin. And, 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 menian 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 what scripture keeps together. All right. Let's rapid fire these because we're getting close here. Okay, so frequently shouted questions on predestination in hell. I might suspend my reform beliefs in this moment and play the Armenian 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 help from the foundation of the world?

That's true. That's what you believe, right? That's a tough one. Okay. And this, again, I think this is one of the biggest things that Armenians struggle with. And we, if you're a Calvinist, you shouldn't make light of that. Because if you're in Armenian, you're struggling with this, you're thinking, number one, how does this not make God a monster?

Now, 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 more Calvinist's 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 honest

and 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 wrestle with this when I think scripture says about this. One is, 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 to make that pre-commit. Another caveat is this, is that as someone who believes an 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 Armenians and Calvinians talk past each other. We have different definition.

An Armenian has a different definition of God's sovereignty than a Calvinist. And a Calvinist has a different definition of free will than Armenian. There you go. 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, that 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, if someone's going to fire back, which we 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. That's great. 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 644, 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. 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, 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 with the Father, draws them, why doesn't he just draw everybody? So I have to wrestle with that. I have to wrestle with Romans 9, where it talks about how Pharaoh was raised up. And it says to show his power.

But then eventually, Romans 9, Paul says that God, he says, 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'd ask myself, like, what do I do with that? How do I wrestle with that? And there's other paths. I'm trying to give you a few just to wrestle with. And I say, hey, I'd have no illusions that when I'm saying all this in this conversation,

if you disagrees me, you're going to come to my side. I'm more giving those passages you 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. And so here's the reality is a Calvinist would say this, that God ultimately, yes, chooses everything, but he chooses differently. the 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 644, 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. So when I read that and it says no one comes to me, unless the Father's something draws him. It means the only thing he has to do is leave people to themselves. By the way, that's a verse.

Yeah. Right? Yes. Is it Romans 323? Yeah. No, what I just read was John 644. Okay. And so, oh, you're talking about the rebellion.

Yeah, the Romans 3.23. All have sin and fallen short of the glory of God. That's called rebellion against God, every single one of us. And by the way, I know this has taken 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 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 going to respond, and maybe you want to say, 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. It's 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.

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 it. 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's 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. So let's say, and I'm going to 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? You sovereign over everything. But would you, Carlos, if you're talking to people, would you say, 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. That's different. 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 God, when we're talking about God's character between him, actively doing something hard into someone and him simply letting it happen. That's what we're talking about. And this again, you may not agree with me, but here's what I would say. After all that, I know that was a lot, go to those verses. And there's more, but go to John 644, 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 a play of the Armenian now. Please. First Timothy, chapter 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?

Yeah, man, such a good question. Because, yeah, 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'm assuming, I'm joking around that, or I'm, you know, assuming you're an Armenian right now. You and I both had to believe that God desires something and he doesn't fulfill it. We both had that problem because you think, you think. 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, hold on, let me push back. But he desires everybody to be saved.

So you're saying he wants something that he has, in this case, we'd go to Romans 9 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. You're like, well, how does that make sense? We'll come back to that a little bit with Romans 9 maybe, and I can maybe read some verses about when we begin questioning God's character in this. But here's what... The Apostle Paul specifically addresses that, but go ahead.

Maybe I should go ahead in a second and get to it, because it just in case we forget to. Okay. But the second thing I'd say is this. It does say that in 1st Timothy. Okay. In 2 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, so 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? Yeah, ma'am, I'm responding to our meaning. But, like, why?

Because free will. Well, but he says that he can grant them repentance. It says that in Second Timothy, too. He says he may grant them. Yeah, he grants repentance to the people that chooses to trust in him. Well, but that's, but he says he may grant repentance that he has to grant it to him before they do choose them. So, like, explain that to me of how. Before they choose him?

Well, yeah. If he grants, if he grants you repentance, then that's something he has to give to you before you can actually act on it. For knowledge, 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. So he grants repentance to those to 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 Armenian. 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 a minion and I say, well, hey, it says almost the exact same phrasing, but it sounds 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 has to forget it. We both have to hold that together. As we're talking about this, one thing I would over to interject in case you're beginning to fill this, or think this in your mind. Even if you don't agree, it's 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 do 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 919, 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 accused of an Armenian? That verse?

Who would ever resist his will? Yeah. I mean... No, an Armenian would never be accused of this. I'm only a Calvinist. A little point I'm trying to make right there. Okay, okay. But then here's Paul's response.

Who are you, oh, man, to answer back to God? Well, what is molded say to the moulder, why have you made me like this? has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vestible 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. 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 you wanted to. All right. know we're starting. Yeah, we're, 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, uh, it's going to open up another conversation here. Did Jesus die for everybody then? If, uh, if only, if he knew he was going to choose only some, then how does that apply to what Jesus accomplished at the cross? Yeah. Which is just for a limited. And then, by the way, this is, uh, for people wondering. This is a third, I believe this is a third point of Calvinism? Yeah.

So it was called tulip. So people that sometimes talk about the five points of Calvinism. You've got total depravity. You've got unlimited, I mean, sorry, you've got unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance to the saint. 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 say, oh, God only died for the elect, for those he chose before the creation of the world. 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 to 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.

Sure phrase is, Jesus died for everybody sufficiently, but he only died for the elector that chosen efficiently. Okay, now that's a loaded 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. Okay. But it is effective for only those that he chose, meaning it, and let me put a different way. His death doesn't make something accomplishable, it accomplishes something. Because if you're from an Armenian perspective, you can't actually say it accomplished something. You have to say it made it accomplishable. Because, or maybe he put it a different way. Did Jesus Christ, from an Armenian 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 save a bull? He saved this in the cross. Well, if you're from an Armenian perspective, you have to make you say, I am save a bull. Oh, yeah, that's right. 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 purchase a bull. It said he actually accomplished something. He did something. But let me speak to the real issue. you that a lot of people wrestle with this. And again, I don't use the phrase limited to I like to think of definite atonement or specifically. He accomplished something with it. Because here's what I like to say is using more the idea of love, do, are we called to love

everybody? Yeah. Am I called to love my wife and my kids in the same way that I love everybody? No. 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' death is for and that it is sufficient for everybody in the world. But for his church, for his bride, 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 here's why. And Armenian 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 saped.

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 let me let me add to that let me take off my arraining head and put on a covenant or i guess the uh the other one there were four one um and again that does not take away from the fact that we all have responsibility to either again when we reject god or when we run towards him it does not take away human responsibility from the equation at the a day. So no. 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. You know, I'm quoted some of Romans 9. There's so much there. But what comes out for Romans 9 is, I know you could make a joke at my sense, but please don't. I have a theory. I have a theory. Is Romans 10? 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 to anyone. So you get those back to back. You get this idea that God is sovereign control in Romans 9. And we should go and give the gospel people in that if anyone believes they will and can't,

they can and will be saved. We got to keep both together. You want to do some of the videos for fun? We got time for like one maybe. Oh. I have a feeling. Are you about to pit me against a friend? I would love that.

How dare you? Shout it to Frank Turk. Oh, goodness. Frank. Frank. He's listening, by the way. I know. I know, Frank, and he's already gotten mad.

He's probably already texted me five or six text messages at this point after listening to this. He's listening to this because he'll text frequently on the podcast. Frank, here, let me, let me handle that. Hey, Frank, Paul completely disagrees with you and he wants to crush you irresponsibly here on the podcast. So we got a video. We'll play it. It's literally a minute. And then Paul, you tell Frank why you think he's wrong.

Oh, my gosh. 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 when we can't 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 debate that took place 40 years ago at Dallas. theological seminary. It was between Norman Geisler, my mentor, and a guy by name of John Gersner. And at one point, Geisler turned to Gersner and he says, he said, does man have free will? And Gersner said, yes, man has free will to do what he desires. But God gives him the desire of his

heart. So Gisler said, who gave Adam the desire to sin? And Gersner said, mystery. And Gisler said contradiction. Listen, this is kind of dirty, man. I I love Frank, and you, like, 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 WW wrestling where he's, Frank's going to, like, come from behind the curtain with a steel chair and like, he will beologically 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 then he will probably give me five reasons why I'm wrong and probably 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, brogo ahead. He doesn't have enough faith to be a Calvin. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's good. That's an inside Frank Joe. But no, listen, Frank's amazing. So 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 Geyser's thing. It really wasn't Frankson. He quoted Geyser, and I'll address that here in a second. Let me first address, though, a verse that I would give to Frank. And so, okay, Frank is 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 Second Seam of 24? which 2nd Samuel 24 is where David takes a census and he is punished for it. He's punished for it.

But it says in 2nd 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. 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. Okay. So how is 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, because I think what Frank would say is it's a shame, and say it would be unjust for God to punish people for things they had no choice in

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, 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 contradicts. 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 to somehow do, but in a way that does not make God the author of evil, because you went here, 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 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 and the thing. On Geister's thing.

What Geister is pointing to is that there is a mystery for Calvinist. And here's how I tell people. For a Calvinist, the mystery is in the past, for an Armenian, 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. There are some answers out there. We don't have time for him today. But still, there is a place where we do have to play the mystery card. I always tell people, like, 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 is so. Brilliant man, by the way, love a lot of Norman stuff. I'd say, hey, hey, Norman, 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. Yeah. And he would say, yes. Yeah. 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?

Blerified 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 that I know like he loves to play that against us, you got to play the mystery card everywhere. Let me sum this up and then we can get in 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 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 verses. I mean, there are really tough things that we had to think about in terms of both. This is part I went back and forth for years on. So 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 Armenians and say, oh, you don't care about the glory of God and you don't care about his sovereignty. And Armenian can look at people and say, oh, you don't care about God's love. And you just, we go to hell and say, 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 that. All right. Let's do it maybe get some final pastoral words and wrap it up. Just that what you said. First Corinthians 1312, 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 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 637. Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. That's right. 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 we can now can lock arms and go do the same thing. And I mentioned earlier my intern, my resident Derek, who he just came out and 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 them where I stood on this.

I said, hey, Derek, let's say that Calvinism is true. And they are pre-dust in one way or another. Whose responsibility 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 Armenianism is true.

Conditional election is true. And it's ultimate responsibility is it if they believe in Jesus or not? And he said, my family, is they say theirs. And then 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 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 these two quotes.

And then I'll ask you to pray, Paul. R.C. Spro, 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, God. I almost forgot. I hate to do this. 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 J.P.

Shout out. The O.G.J.P. He is an ardent Calvinist. Arden's Calvinist. And love him. By the way, love John Piper. I once I heard him at, he was asked a question on this specifically around like, man, has God pissing people to hell?

And he said is 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 not loving, I would rather have you not believe it. Interesting. So I will give that one final pastor award. So I remember this as you were talking. I was like, I'll feel like we got to say, 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 it, maybe God will work in your mind and your heart. but I just say, hey, if this is going to really cause you simple, let it go for now, and go do what I said a few minutes ago. Share the gospel believing everything that R.C. Sprode through what college just had said, said. All right. I'll pray for us. Who's true? All right. Man, Father, thank you for the fact that we can as Christian brothers and sisters have these kind 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 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 it's not divide or distract us. Lord, I want to pray, going back to some things we talked to being 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.