Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Glad to see everybody here today. Welcome those of you online also, and we will have a word of prayer. Jump right into our, our bible study session. What are we on session four of? Why? Why? And we have looked at why are some people charismatic? Why are some people new? Apostolic reformation. We spent three weeks on that. Today. We're going to shift topics and look at why are some people Calvinists? If you are one of those, hopefully you will not be by the time you leave today, but we'll have put all that together here. Glad to have guests from North Carolina and from Alabama with us. We'll do some more official greetings in the service in a little bit, but let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thanks for your blessing today. The blessing of the rain last night, the blessing of the beauty and freshness this morning, the blessing of a place to come together and study the word and look at our theology and the theology of others, a place to fellowship and be encouraged. And we pray that today all that we do and say would be pleasing to you, acceptable to you, and that if I get anything wrong, dear heavenly father, help us forget it quick or get it right, and that which we get that is correct, help us to apply into our own doctrine. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. So here we are again on this fourth session of why we're trying to figure out where other people are coming from. It is easy to say, well, I'm not that, but do we have a good understanding of why I'm not that and why they are that? And I think to understand not only their theology, but to understand our theology, it makes, it makes a great study to just say, okay, let me come from their perspective and try to see how in the world did they ever end up with this? And so that's the purpose of this series here. And as I mentioned, we are going to go into that topic of Calvinism. You know, Calvinism for, let me give you just a little bit of history. Calvinism and reformed theology, you may have heard both terms. Reformed theology is the broader family in which Calvinism sits. Calvinism is really a soteriology. You didn't know when you came out camping you were going to get two dollar words, did you? You never heard that. So I'll tell you, all of the ologies in the church, if you hear ology, it's pretty much about an area of doctrine. And we've got theology that's the study of God, or sometimes we use it in a broad term. It's just all of our doctrine together. But technically, it's the study of God. Christology is the study of Christ. Pneumatology is the study of the pneumatos, the Holy Spirit, and eschatology is the eschaton. Most of these are built off greek words, the last things. Now, soteriology is the greek word sotere, which just means to be saved. So if we want to put it in English, it's savology. There we go. Calvinism is the savology of reformed theology. Reform theology has, you know, it might be about the government, the doctrine of the government. It might be the doctrine of the local church or the universal church or the priesthood of whoever, you know, whatever their. Their case may be. 1001 things reformed theology could be. Within reformed theology, there is a. What did I call it? Savology. A savology. A soteriology that is typically called Calvin. And it's. If you're. You may, you may be terribly surprised to find out it's named after a guy named John Calvin, who was one of the reformers beginning of reformed theology. And grab one of each there on your notes there. And it's one of the reformed. It's the doctrine of salvation for reformed theology. Now, Calvin didn't actually come up with Calvinism as it's known now, but nonetheless, it took on his name. So with that, there's some notes right on the back table right there. You might want to grab with that. Let's consider what this thing is. You've probably heard of it, if you've heard of it at all. Let me back up a little bit. I was given history, wasn't I? And I forgot what I was doing back in the day. It was reformers. This is the 1516 hundreds. The reformers developed this idea, but there were a number of branches of the reformation. And there is the one that we call reformed. There's others that sometimes it's called the radical reformation. It's really two different streams. We won't go into it all, but of the reformers, they developed this soteriology that eventually came to be known as tulip. You've perhaps heard of it. Tulip. Tulip. The t is for total depravity, u is for unconditional election, l is for limited atonement, I is for irresistible grace, and p is for perseverance of the saints or preservation of the saints, depending on how you take it. We'll dive into those in just a moment. Now go into, let's say, the 18 hundreds. By the time you get to the 18 hundreds. That particular sabology was held chiefly in presbyterian circles. The Presbyterians were always Calvinists, but outside of that, most especially in the United States, were nothing of that bent. Now you have congregationalists. Congregationalists were kind of a mix, mostly reformed in their theology. They just had a little different way they did church. But the congregationalists, the Presbyterians, they would hold that. The Catholics don't really hold it, the Anglicans don't really hold it. But that stream of presbyterian, congregational, the Puritans in the United States did hold to a predestination and election. Some of these terms that you may have heard then there were the others that typically more came from the radical reformation or never came out of that family to begin with. But that would be the Methodists, the Baptists, some of these others. I would put the Lutherans in with the Presbyterians as well. So that mainstream is what adopted this soteriology of Calvinism now in the 18 hundreds again, and I would say early 19 hundreds, probably up to even, I'll go to 1960, maybe even 1970. That's where you found Calvinism. If you went to a presbyterian seminary, you would find it. If you went to a lutheran seminary, you would find it. If you went to a congregationalist assembly up in the northeast where they exist, you would find it. Outside of that. You might have heard of it. You might have heard, oh, there's some people that hold that. But it really wasn't mainstream about the 1970s. It really began to kind of permeate, I'll even say evangelicalism and even some into fundamentalism. And it became, it has been a growing, what do they say? House of fire. It's been a house of fire since then that places, that places denominations, seminaries, Bible colleges that were never calvinist are all of a sudden becoming calvinist to the point that some denominations really have completely changed, many churches have completely changed that did not have a Calvinist bent to them at all, and now they're fully calvinist. So it's been a huge kind of growth thing. So I think it's worthy for us to stop and talk about, okay, why, where do they come from? There are a number of things I want to look at to, to start us out. Let's talk with the logic of Calvinism. I want to talk about why has this grown so much within the church world now, let me say the church world is a shrinking world. You know, the world is becoming more secular, but within that shrinking church world, Calvinism has grown a lot. Why? What's happening? I want to say the first reason is the logic. By the way, just in case you don't know or missed the intro or not sure where I'm coming from, I'm not a Calvinist, but I want to put myself in their shoes. It is a very logical way of looking at what God is doing in the world and has done in the world. And I think that in evangelicalism there was probably starting in the fifties, but definitely in the sixties, seventies, eighties, a real push towards pragmatism. If it works, do it. A seeker sensitive. Let's just go. Let's talk about how to win friends and influence people, how to be a better kisser, how to have a greener lawn, all those kind of things that were in the church. So a mile wide and an inch deep is what the church became. And a lot of people said, I really want more than that. I'm tired of going to church and feeling like I watched an Oprah show. I want to get some Bible study. I want some theology. And what they found is that they could find this in calvinist circles. Calvinists are very serious. We used to call them, before they took over, we used to call them the frozen chosen. And so they're very solemn, very serious. And honestly, if you go to a church for a long time, that is one dog and pony show after another, you get tired of dog and pony shows after a while and you want something with some depth into it, some theology, some history, some, all these kind of things, some serious thoughts. And so that was one of them. I don't really have that on the list. I've got the logic, but there was an appeal there. But with that, the same in those, let's say, shallow churches, there also was a tendency not to be very logical. That is, a particular sermon was usually logical. But next week's sermon might go against this week's sermonous. Like this week we might teach, you are saved by grace through faith, not of works. Anyone, anytime next week we might preach. If you need to get rid of that particular sin in your life before you'll ever be able to come to God. Amen. So then you say, wait a minute, is it me or is it not me? Does he welcome anyone anywhere, anytime? Or does he say, no, you gotta go get cleaned up first. Which one is it? And so heads begin to spin. And I would say, especially young heads, we old people forget by next week, right, Steve? Yes. Yes. So, you know, we forget some things or we're so used to it, or as I've mentioned before, I think that those of us who are a little bit older, we grew up in an America that had a, a pretty strong judeo christian value and because of that we were just kind of solid and secure and we didn't worry about, eh, I can't put that together in my mind. Well, we were so solid in the judeo christian worldview that it didn't matter if we couldn't answer questions. If that seemed to contradict, we just went with, it was a much more churched society. Young people today grow up and they don't have that basis in society. And so they hear the lack of logic and they say, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. And they try to put it together in their mind and they ask a question and the preacher doesn't really have an answer for them. That's very solid. Then they end up, they go to a conference when they're in college and a calvinist preacher speaks and he's got something serious, something solid, something historical, something that seems logical. And they're hungry for that. They want that. And so they take it often hook, line and seeker, sinker. They came from the Seeker church and then they went to the sinker church. Now let's think about the logic here. Just a moment. This is not a study of Calvinism. I've got full studies of Calvinism if you want to go back and learn some more on it. But the logic that they've got these chains in the tulip system, total depravity, don't be mistaken on total depravity, on what that means, total depravity. This is what it means. It means that even with the most perfect presentation of the gospel that could be given in the most spirit filled place there was, you are so totally depraved, you absolutely cannot and will not accept the gospel. That's total depravity. It is. Total depravity is total. If you study it, it's down to your very nature, your being, your DNA, your thinking, everything about you is depraved. Now, if that's the case, then how is anybody going to be saved? Well, the only way anyone's going to be saved is if God chooses some to be saved. And so very logical, build this. If I was going to be a Calvinist, I would hammer this one all the time. Total depravity, radical corruption. Because then you've got to have, well, some other denominations have a different way of dealing with this. But under Calvinism, you've got to have unconditional election. That is God chooses some of you unconditionally. He knows you're totally depraved. But he decides, I'm going to save you, you, you and you. That then would lead to limited atonement. Limited atonement is. I'm going to pay the price for those whom I have selected. Very logical. And normally those who hold limited atonement would. I don't. But those who hold limited atonement would say that the blood of Christ is sufficient for everyone. But it's not for everyone. Because if it was for everyone, then God would sort of fail in having offered something that. That people would not accept. And God would go into eternity with great depression, doom and gloom and agony on me. And that can't happen. So limited atonement, that leads. I can't do that. That leads to the. I had to think of how you spell tulip. Irresistible grace. You've been selected. He paid the price, but you're so totally depraved that you would not come. But he gives a grace that you cannot resist. If you are one of the elect, you will be. Eventually you will recognize it and you will receive Christ as your savior, as we might say. And then the p is the perseverance or the preservation of the saints. And that is if all that happens, then surely you're gonna make it to the end. He is going to preserve you and you are going to persevere all the way to the end. There really is no. What would you say? No assurance of salvation under Calvinism because you don't know until you persevered to the end. And then you find out whether or not you were truly one of the elect. So now you put that together. It's very logical. Let me go to the second thing on why the growth. Okay, so there was a shallowness, there was illogic. Is that the opposite of logic? Yes. Okay. There was illogic. It was illogical. And so they found this thing that was not shallow. It's deep, it's sophisticated, it's logical, and then it's biblical. Sure sounds biblical. Anyway, on all of those five points that we just went through, I could find many. I wouldn't, you know, I haven't tried this, but I would guess that if you give me 35 minutes in a computer I could find a dozen supporting scriptures for every one of those. Wouldn't be very hard. I could find them. They're kind of on the surface right there. I could get them. And if you are not taught good biblical hermeneutics, there's another one for you good biblical hermeneutics. That has nothing to do with Herman. It's how do you study, interpret, and apply God's word? If you've never been taught that, you could convince the unsuspecting. Oh, this is. And especially if the one thing you have been taught is an appreciation and honor for the word of God. You believe the word of God is the word of God. You got a bumper sticker that said, God said it, I believe it. That settles it. So then some preacher stands before you, and he's got a big black bible, and he opens it up to total depravity and says, you know, there's none. Who seeks after God? Know not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And he goes through a dozen scriptures or so, and you can come to say, oh, yeah, you know what? I really do think that this concept of total depravity is very true. I've given Romans 310, which is a quote from. I think it's Isaiah, but I could be wrong on that. Romans 310, as it is written, there is none righteous? No, not one. You take it. Let me go ahead and cut to the chase here. How many think you guys are in Bible college? Do you know where Romans 310 is quoted from? They're only sophomores. I don't know either. It's Jeremiah. It's Isaiah. It's something like that. But how many think wherever, let's call it Isaiah just for fun. Okay. When Isaiah said, there's none righteous, no, not one. How many of you think he might have had a context in saying that? Just might have? Yeah. So is it. Did any of you hike to Wheeler peak this week? No. No. There is none that has hiked to wheeler? No, not one. Is that true? It is in our context. Is it true in overall context? No. A lot of people have hiked a wheeler, so a context really matters now, if you know the context, by the way, here's something you can take back when you're a preacher someday. The whatever the context is in its original has to carry over into its New Testament usage, period. No exceptions. It always carries over. So whatever the context is in Isaiah, that carries over into Romans. And when you begin to look at it, you say, okay, wait a minute, there is a context. By the way, he's talking about Israel there and the state that Israel was in at the time, they had all rejected God. There is none who is righteous? No, not one. Because, by the way, if I wanted to throw a wrench in the whole thing, you know, if I'm trying to convince you, I would not try to throw a wrench in the whole thing. But if I wanted to, if I was debating a calvinist, I might say, let's see, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Luke, chapter one, verse six, says they were both righteous before God, blameless in the law. There's none righteous except for Zechariah and Elizabeth. I'm sorry, forgot them. In the Old Testament, there's actually testimony of a number of righteous people where the testimony of scripture is they were righteous before God. And so what's up with this? Okay, my point is, if you don't question the assumptions, if you don't ask a few questions, if you don't take the context, then it all works out of. But the problem is, that's called proof texting. When you find a text that is proof, bingo, there it is. See, I got it. Remember the guy, this is an old preacher story, but the guy who was really kind of distraught and didn't know what to do. And so he said, lord, just tell me what to do. I'm going to close my eyes and open it up and you reveal it to me. And he put it down and it said, and Judas went and hanged himself. And he thought, oh, this can't be Lord. I need confirmation or denial. And so he closed his eyes, he opened up the Bible, he put his finger down and said, go thou and do likewise. You can get yourself in trouble with that kind of biblical hermeneutics, right? So if you're not careful, you put out these various passages and they seem to in and of themselves prove the point. So we really have to train ourselves to assume the preacher doesn't have it. Right. Let's dig in the scriptures. Let's be good Bereans, search and see if these things are so, and really dig in. Say, okay, he used that passage. It sounds like it supports that. But does it really support that in its context, in the overall working of scripture? You know, we do have to take the full counsel of God, right? Study to show thyself approved a workman who hath no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. So we have to take these scriptures, we have to put them in their context. Otherwise it's so easy to slip into proof texting. I've done it many times. I'm sure I've preached a few sermons that were proof texted along the way, if you really get right down to it. And then we later say, oh, wait a minute, that didn't, that doesn't say that at all. And I could give a dozen examples, but I have a clock back there. You know, you go through this, I'm not going to go through these particular passages of scripture that I've given. You've got them on the outline there. But for unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, all of these, you've got the, you've got, I've just given you one. But again, I think you could go dozens of issues. So here you got someone who loves the Lord and loves the Bible, but they're tired of everything being shallow. They go look for something, or they go to a conference, and here's something that's deep. Here's something that's intellectual. Here's something that has some historical validity to it or historical precedent to it. Here's something that is logical. Here's something that is biblical. You can see why, you know, you get the right environment and bingo, that thing can catch on and really begin to go. Now you remember. Well, you may not remember. Do you know that there used to be concept, actually, it's ancient concept, going back to the greek philosophers like Aristotle and through most of, let's call it paganism, whether it's pagan philosophy, pagan science, this was not so much in the, in the Judeo christian world, but those who didn't accept the testimony of the Bible. You know, you sit down some night and you say, I wonder where life came from? And you begin to philosophize. Where did life come from? And there was this concept among the philosophers, and then even later, the scientists that lasted up until about Louis pasteur, when was he, in the thirties? He killed the idea finally, once and for all. But the idea was spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation. It was the concept that nonliving things could spontaneously produce living things. And if you read again, Aristotle and all the greek philosophers and whatnot, this was kind of their, their philosophy of where did life come from? Spontaneous generation. Now, they got this from, sorry, we're having lunch later, and this is not the prettiest picture, but they would see some dead meat. And then, lo and behold, they come back the next day and there are maggots coming out of that meat. Therefore, that dead thing produced living things. And that lasted really for a long time. Even before Louis Pasteur, there was a guy named Ricky Ripi that sort of put it away. But Louis Pasteur finally got the science behind it, where you could prove in a laboratory it's actually flies coming, laying eggs there. That's where this came from. So they had to put the idea aside. But Calvinism looks logical. You know, it's, it wasn't there and now it's there, therefore. So it has this logical nature, it has this biblical nature, so to speak, and carries it out. Now I say, question the assumptions all the time because it is not the logic of an argument that makes it right. It is the assumptions upon which that argument, that logical argument is built. You've got to have a logical argument. But if the logic, like spontaneous generation, if that is built upon flawed assumptions, doesn't matter how logical it is. And this is why, by the way, when you're listening to a sermon and you say, oh, that's very logical. Yes, yes, yes, I see it, I see it, I see it. You have to question the assumptions, say, okay, what is this built upon? Now, Calvinism, the soteriology of reformed theology, is built on some assumptions which I think are just this huge leap, leap of faith, leap away from the Bible of faith. But the Calvinism is sometimes called, and this is a little broader than Calvinism itself, but it's sometimes called covenant theology. Covenant theology. Now, of course, you've heard of covenants in the Bible, right? There's the abrahamic covenant, the mosaic covenant, Davidic Covenant. You've heard of these and you could go, we could go to genesis chapter twelve and see the abrahamic covenant, exodus chapter 20 and see the mosaic covenant, one Samuel chapter seven. We could see the Davidic Covenant, we could go to Jeremiah chapter. Is it 30 or 31? 31, I think, and see the new Covenant, the promised new Covenant. So you hear covenant theology and, oh, it's about those covenants, but it's not. Covenant theology has nothing to do with any of those covenants that you can actually go to a place in the Bible and read. Covenant theology is when a group of theological philosophers came together and said, I wonder how the world works? And they began to philosophize and they said, ah, you know, I think that they had the Bible with them. And so it's a mix between philosophy and theology. They said, you know, God made a covenant of works with Adam, said to Adam, if you don't do that, you will live. If you do that, you will die. That's the covenant that we have together, me and you, and that's the covenant of works, as they called it. Well, obviously we know what happened. Adam did do that and death set in. So then God in the covenant theology mind, God said, okay, now what are we going to do? Could have just let him die. And that was the end of creation, the experiment. Let it be done. But he didn't. He gathered together in a meeting with the Godhead and made a covenant of grace and said, okay, we're going to be gracious and a covenant of redemption. We're going to carry out that grace by redeeming certain individuals and ultimately redeeming the created order as well. That is covenant theology. They would say that we are under this covenant of grace. By the way, the covenant of grace is different than the dispensation of the grace of God, just to plant that in the back of your mind. So you got this covenant theology. Now, these covenants are not covenants you can find anywhere in the Bible that give any kind of proof to it. But all of the tulip system is built upon that idea. We're under this covenant of grace, and God is selecting people that he is going to redeem. Now, let's find scriptures to prove it, and let's find a logical system to prove it with the tulip system. And they begin to do that. They begin to carry it out. And that's what you got, by the way. They met together, these covenantalists, after they determined there were three covenants then, and now they meet together to determine what order those covenants were given, especially the last two. Grace and work. Excuse me, grace and redemption. And how did God decide to do it? When did he decide to do it? Have you ever heard of a term like supra lapsarianism? There is none. Righteous? No, not one. Supra lapsarianism and infra Lapsarianism. You gotta make them sound erudite. I didn't sound very erudite. Erudite, sophisticated. You gotta make it sound sophisticated. You can't use English, you know, you gotta use some Latin. So God decided these three things, and then the debate between supra Lapsarianism and intra Lapsarianism is what order did God decide to do these things? So you make up the meeting, and then you make up the minutes to the meeting, and then you build your theology on all of that. So I think it's some huge assumptions that go about there and take. Now, if their assumptions are right, everything fits together. If their assumptions are wrong, doesn't matter whether it fits together or not. I personally think their assumptions are wrong. Now, so you meet a Calvinist and you want to say, well, I'm not a Calvinist. You're a Calvinist. Let's have a little discussion about it. I might say, and I don't know, that this would be the nicest thing to say, but I'll go ahead and say it. There is, with Calvinism, there tends to be, not always, you can find an exception, but there tends to be a bit of an arrogance that goes with that school of thought. I think it's a little bit natural. If God chose you from before the foundation of the world and he didn't choose others, you could. Well, I would hold my head high. Right. I mean, and so it, it sort of accidentally, I think, gets built in. We all get arrogant and haughty and snarky and all that from time to time. Myself excluded, of course, but in that family there is a little bit of that that happens again. I don't think any of them mean it. I don't think that that is not part of their doctrine. It just happens in that community, so to speak. You could find, you know, every different community has their sort of quirks. That's one of their quirks, is there tends to be a bit of an arrogance. So they're kind of hard to sometimes argue with. But if I'm arguing with or debating or having a gentlemanly conversation, I would focus on these three things here. Number one is true freedom versus predetermined choice. I think if indeed there is a true freedom of the will, then that has to be truly a freedom of the will. I think that it is incompatible to say, you have been selected from before the foundation of the world to be, let's say, damned. You've been selected to be damned, or you were not selected to be saved. They would probably rather say you were not selected to be saved and then come to the end and say, oh, you didn't decide to be saved. That was your own free will and therefore you're damned because of it. That doesn't seem like free will to me. Flip side, most Calvinists take the predestination for salvation onto everything there is. In the Heidelberg catechism, which was written a long time ago by Calvinists, it actually says that everything, yes, everything comes from God's hand. The belief is, let's see, the stock market went down this week, didn't it? Did I see that? I thought you all looked broke. The stock market went down. God determined that before the foundation of the world. That's not accident, that's not politics. It's not government, not business. It's God did that. There's, you know, there was a weird election in Venezuela recently. God determined that he set that it wasn't the people of the voting, it wasn't the Dominion systems, it wasn't whatever it was, God did that. Everything that happens, you get cancer, God did that. You got healed from cancer. God did that. You didn't get healed from cancer. God did that. Everything you're here this morning, God did that. Now, I think that's hard to make compatible with free will, and I think that free will really is presented in the Bible, or the Bible is just not very honest. If I offer you something. Yeah, sure, come get it. But I know that it's impossible for you to come get it. My, aren't I generous? I'm giving you all a million dollars today, if you'll come the second Tuesday of this week. The second Tuesday of this week, I am giving a million dollars. Whoever is here first, the second Tuesday this week, come on, I'm generous, aren't I? Except that nobody can do it because there's not two Tuesdays this week. Did you even hear that? Get that part? I thought I could see that went over your head there. Second Tuesday of this week. There we go. So you make an offer that looks wonderful, but it's not an offer. It's not, it's not really. It's not, it's not bona fide. Bona fide in given, in good faith. It is not honest. Honestly. That was good, wasn't it? So true. Freedom. Now this, I think is one of the squirreliest things of Calvinism because they know these two things don't go together. They've developed this thing called the doctrine of compatibility. The doctrine of compatibility means things that are incompatible are actually compatible. It's just that we can't understand their compatibility. They look incompatible, but they're actually compatible. Seems to me like you gotta have special golden spectacles to be able to get that out of scripture. So I would deal a little bit with what really is a true freedom. And did God give that? If he didn't give it, then no problem. If he did give it and it really is true, then you do have a problem on the back end. Okay. Second thing I would deal with is God's sovereignty. You hear a lot about the sovereignty of God within calvinist circles. And in that discussion about sovereignty, as a matter of fact, I would say if you go to a church and you're not really sure, is this a calvinist church or is it not a calvinist church? And you can't really tell. Now, for example, we got Baptist on the sign out there. You go into a Baptiste church, there's a lot of Baptist Calvinists. There's a lot of Baptist non Calvinists. I don't know when I go in which one it is. If you hear a lot of talk about the sovereignty of God, that's a clue. This might be a calvinist church because they like to talk about the sovereignty of God. Now I think there is a bigger view of sovereignty than the one they hold. I think that it's actually a greater display of sovereignty. If you can say whosoever will, I am so sovereign that your decision is not going to shake me off my throne. I am not worried that you people might vote in the wrong leader and all of a sudden you'll vote in goddesse, you know, who's not God and I'll be left out in the gold. He's completely sovereign and secure in his sovereignty to give a freedom of the will. I would have a discussion there about the sovereignty of God. And then because I'm out of time, I'm going to go to the last one on the list and that is original sin. Original sin is the starting point of total depravity. Remember I said I'd hit total depravity all day long because that's the kingpin. That is all built upon. Total depravity is actually built upon the catholic doctrine of original sin. Original sin, just to make things confusing, is not about the original sin. We know the original sin, lowercase o and s, right. And that's Adam and Eve and the fruit in the garden. That was the original sin. But the doctrine of original sin, let's put a capital o and a capital s on it, really is a doctrine that when Adam and Eve sinned and there was what we often call the fall of man, our very nature changed and we inherit the guilt of Adam. So you are born guilty. That and a natural progression. You are born totally depraved. I would deal with that. You know, it is quite shocking. I think the Bible college students would probably agree with me. Maybe you can give me a up or a no. If someone comes to Pensacola Christian college or crown College and says, I deny the doctrine of original sin, would there be shock in the congregation? The nods are not going either way. Just give me a yes nod for the sake of it. I thought so. I thought so that you can't deny the doctrine of original sin. I think we ought to get in and talk about it because we're not talking about whether or not a person needs to be saved. You can have that without the doctrine of original sin being separated from God. That's not the doctrine of original sin with our nature. So this issue of original sin goes back to the Catholics. You know how the Catholics dealt with it, don't you? Because you're born guilty. You need to bring your baby in and have them baptized and that sacrament of the church will put grace upon your baby so that if the baby dies before they have a chance to make amends themselves then they would go to heaven. We wash away original sin. That is the entire doctrine of baptism for the catholic church is get rid of the original sin. But the Calvinists came along and many of them accepted the idea of infant baptism but some of them didn't. But they wanted to deal with that in a different way. So they said, ah, no, instead of baptism washing away original sin it's God's election that overcomes original sin. Something has to overcome original sin. And so God's election, I choose you, you, you, you and you, you all have overcome original sin because I'm going to do these things for you in order to get you past that problem. So everybody born guilty Catholics say we can fix that through baptism and then there's more sacraments beyond that. But the many in covenant theology would say we can fix that through election. The Arminians, I'm not an Arminian either, by the way, but the Arminians save that for another day. But they teach something called provenient grace. Provenient grace says, yeah, there's original sin but God gave this blanket of grace to get you over it until you get to the age of accountability and God just poured that out upon all mankind. That's how they deal with it. Okay? Everybody's trying to deal with original sin. Honestly, my take is what if it doesn't even exist? What if we're trying to solve a problem that's not there? And my other take is I'm out of time. How's that for landing that plane? Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly father, thanks for an opportunity to come in and see where this is coming from. Maybe to understand it in this brief overview just a little bit or enough to say we would like to study it a little more. And I pray that you'd help us indeed to grow in our own doctrine and theology to be gracious with others as well. And as we come into our worship service here in just a moment we pray that it's encouraging and honorable to you. I ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Okay, we're going to take about a ten and twelve minute break and we'll come into the life and times of King David. And Absalom is going to die today. Guess what? I let the cat out of the bag, didn't I? But we'll look all that in just a few minutes. Take a little break. Stretch. If you need the restroom, follow the sidewalk to the next building. Right there. And it is there. Thanks for being here today.