Welcome back to Truth Time, Truth Time Radio.
Today our subject is Calvinism.
We'll call it Calvinism or a quote, "by chance," priest.
No Calvinist can handle Luke chapter 10 verse 31.
Here's where Christ himself said, By chance.
Here we read of a man that had traveled from Jerusalem to Jericho and along the way he ran into some thieves.
They stripped him of his clothing, robbed and beat him, and left him for dead.
And a priest passed by, but instead of helping the man, he moved to the other side of the road.
Now, I know the Calvinists don't believe this, but Jesus said that this event that took place, it happened by chance.
It was by chance that a priest happened to be in the area.
It wasn't preordained, prearranged, or predestined, but by chance.
Two pesky little words that drive the Calvinist bonkers.
Throws a proverbial wrench in their theology.
It happened, this event that we're speaking of today, it happened by chance, by choice.
Choices were made.
Even though they say there's no free will, well, I don't know, choices were made here.
The thieves chose to rob and beat the man.
The man that was robbed, he also made a choice.
He made a free will choice to be there.
There where the robbery and the beating took place.
And the priest, well, he also made the choice to be there.
And that's why the Lord said, by chance, he passed by.
And we find the same thing, you know, this is New Testament we're talking about in the book of Luke, but we find the same thing in 2 Samuel 1:6, the Old Testament.
We find another by chance. 2 Samuel 1:6, And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon Mount Geboah, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear, and lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him.
Now, according to Calvinists, everything that happens has been orchestrated by God, even though this same God clearly disagrees, as we just read.
Calvinists claim that only those who God preselected will be saved.
Listen, I got a fact for you.
Just because God knows who's going to heaven and who's going to hell does not mean he chose who's going to heaven and who's going to hell.
No, it simply means he knows.
Knowing and choosing are not the same.
If it's God's will, 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 4, if it's God's will that all men be saved, how can Calvinists say he only predestined a few?
All and few are different, and they carry different meanings, very different meanings.
Romans 5:18, listen, Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
Not a few, but all.
See that?
Investigate this for yourself.
God has not elected a few special people unto himself while overlooking some others.
In Paul's epistles is where we find ourselves being identified, and the predestined are those of us in Christ.
Do I believe in predestination?
Yes, but not in the way the Calvinists describe.
The predestined are those in Christ.
We're the whosoevers.
The individual is not predestined.
Christ and his body is.
Before the foundation of the world, it was predestined, already decided, that those who would put their trust in Christ and believe the gospel would be placed into that predestined, predetermined church, the body of Christ.
God does not have a certain people preordained for salvation, and he's not orchestrating our daily lives either.
That's just another lie of the Calvinist.
Things happen by chance, just as Christ said in Luke chapter 10.
You got these super sanctimonious religious type folk.
They're everywhere you turn today.
If you even say the word luck in front of them, they'll gasp.
There's no such thing as luck.
Your problem's not with me.
Your problem is you don't believe God's word, the Bible.
We just read it, and Jesus himself said it, by chance, by chance.
Now, that's luck, like it or not.
That's coincidence.
And regardless of popular belief, God is not in heaven waiting for a door to close on you so so he can step in and open another one.
Or, as I heard a preacher say, if God closes a door, he'll open a window.
What?
That's what I call Christianese, the language of the holier-than-thous, the everything happens for a reason club.
We've heard this mess for so long, now even athletes say it when they lose.
Everything happens for a reason.
Yeah, the other team's better than you.
That's the reason.
Nothing supernatural about that.
God's not opening and shutting doors in your life.
He didn't cause your flat tire on the way to work, and the devil didn't cause it on your way to church.
It was the nail in the driveway.
God's not pouring out his judgment on you today, but rather he's chosen to hold back his day of wrath. That's why his word says we live in, quote, The dispensation of the grace of God.
Grace and wrath don't go together.
Romans 5:8, and 9, but God commandeth his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him.
No wrath for the saved by grace through faith.
Paul tells us to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 1:10.
Amen.
And in chapter 5, verse 9, it says this, For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are good circumstances and there are bad circumstances.
Neither are a product of predestination.
No, God has given each of us free will, free will to make decisions on our own.
Now if we're smart, our decisions will come from being educated, being equipped in God's word, having our minds renewed day by day, having put on the whole armor of God. Our loins girt about with truth, wearing the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace at our feet, the helmet of
salvation on our head, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
We make choices, and those choices have consequences.
Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not.
That's life.
That's reality.
That's just being real, something that's lacking within the body of Christ, or at least those who profess to be in the body of Christ.
Those fellows in Luke chapter 10, hey, they decided for themselves, they made a conscious decision, that they wanted to be thieves.
They were not predestined thieves.
That's just silly.
And by chance the priest happened to come by and witness this robbery.
Another choice.
The priest chose to go the way he went.
And what did he do?
He went to the other side of the road to avoid getting involved.
Another freewill decision.
Imagine that, a priest made a conscious decision to avoid helping the guy who was being robbed and beaten.
Another choice, a cowardly choice at that.
You want to speak truth about his intervention?
God intervened, the greatest intervention, listen, God intervened through Jesus Christ on the cross. The message we've gotten away from.
That's what all of these teachings do.
They take you away from the cross and smack dab in the middle of religious confusion.
In the middle of God doing this, God doing that, God leading me here, God led me there.
What did I do wrong?
Are you upset with me?
Am I being judged for a bad decision?
No, the wrath, the judgment, God's judgment was poured out onto his Son at the cross.
He took your judgment.
He took your punishment.
He took God's wrath upon him so that you wouldn't have to.
God, manifest in the flesh, came and died for your every sin, every last one of them.
Now that's intervention, but religion has taken the importance of that intervention and placed it on your daily circumstances.
If you want to experience God's intervention today, study his word.
God intervenes in our lives.
Now I do believe in intervention, in divine supernatural intervention from God, but it's not in the way that Calvin is described.
God intervenes in our lives today through his divine word.
Remember, he said he magnifies his word above his own name.
Now that's incredible, and we have access.
Listen, we have access to those words that he puts above his own name.
We have access to them every day.
Yet you're concerned with how he's going to intervene in one of your daily circumstances?
Some say God intervenes in their lives and circumstances by speaking to them.
He does speak to us today, but not in the popular way you're hearing about.
He speaks to us through his word.
You want to hear God speak?
Read his word.
You want to hear God speak out loud?
Read it out loud.
Claiming to hear his voice is just your excuse to avoid Bible study.
That might take some work, you know.
Wouldn't want that.
I've had people tell me that God spoke to them and told them who to vote for.
No, you saw him on TV, liked what he had to say, he had a couple of cute kids and made you laugh, so you voted for him.
Stop blaming God for it.
God in the circumstances.
You know, we got folks today talking about God gave them a job.
God didn't give you a job.
No, you filled out an application for it.
Get real.
You paid for this supposed gift that you claim God gave you.
You paid for it by doing something.
You don't do anything for a gift, but you had to set your alarm clock even to wake up on time, to go to the interview, to go fill out your application, to get this supposed job that God gave you.
You got up early, took a shower, shaved, brushed your teeth and combed your hair.
It took a vehicle to get you there, gas in the vehicle.
What kind of gift is that?
One you have to pay for.
And when you got there, you had to you had to talk a certain way, smile just right, yes sir, no sir, answer all the questions.
What kind of weak God is this that you serve?
If God gave you the job, you wouldn't have to do anything for it.
You don't perform, you don't do anything for a gift.
If God gave you the job, why did you have to work so hard to get it?
When a gift is unearned.
Fill out the application, go back for an interview, pass a test.
They're saying, you do your best and God will do the rest.
What a weak God they speak of.
They claim it's miraculous even though they played a part in it.
You can't make this stuff up.
I heard a judge on American Idol tell someone, and I've heard this several times before, you know, in life you hear this kind of stuff, but they said, you have a God-given gift.
Really?
Apparently they don't know what a gift is.
A gift is something you don't work for.
The person you just said that to has been singing since they were four years old.
They had a vocal coach.
They practiced for hours and hours every day.
Their parents spent thousands of dollars and countless hours going back and forth to lessons, but God gave them a gift.
You really can't make this stuff up.
He sure is a gifted welder, a gifted mechanic, or try telling your doctor that.
God gave you a gift.
What kind of gift cost multiple thousands of dollars and takes multiple years of college to get?
People really don't think, do they?
Or they just don't know what a gift is.
I'm not sure, but God's not in your circumstances.
He didn't predestine everything.
He hasn't given you everything you have.
He didn't choose you above anyone.
No, the truth is you chose to make choices and you reap from those choices.
Stop with a fairy tale God and get real for a change.
We're not Israel and our blessings are not physical, not material.
They're spiritual.
If you get a new car, you'll pay for it.
Oh, but brother Trey, God gave us our home.
No, he didn't.
You still got a mortgage on it.
That home belongs to the bank.
He didn't predestinate it to be yours and and it's why sometimes they get foreclosed on.
You bit off more than you can chew and then blame God for it.
If a tornado goes through town and destroys a few homes and businesses on one block, there's always some religious nut that'll say, Hey, that was God trying to teach us something.
But one block over, just one block over, there'll be another nut blaming it on the devil.
Such confusion within religion.
I'm so thankful to be free from this, free from the twistyanity spin zone.
There's no stability there, folks.
None whatsoever.
This rightly dividing the word of truth you constantly hear me talk about, it's the only answer.
It's time you stop looking at your circumstances to see the hand of God when you have his word right in front of you, God's hands right there, the Bible.
There's where you get your information, not your circumstances.
You have a free will and that's why some freely will not read this book.
They'd rather look to their circumstances for answers.
Can God work in your everyday life, in your everyday circumstances?
Yeah, but not in the way Calvinists tell you.
God works through his word.
You study it, you apply it, it works.
But it's your choice.
Nothing's forced on you.
It's your choice to study, to show thyself approved unto God.
It's your choice to be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
It's your choice to rightly divide the word of truth.
And here's another verse that destroys Calvinism.
Jeremiah chapter 32:35, And they built the high places of Baal which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech which I commanded them not neither came into my mind that they should do this abomination to cause
Judah to sin.
Now wait, neither came it into my mind that they should do the abomination?
How did John MacArthur miss this?
My position is seated with God in heavenly places.
I have all spiritual blessings.
I'm no more a servant but a son.
An heir of God through Christ.
I'm at peace with God.
I can never be condemned.
I've been made righteous by he who knew no sin but was made to be sin for me.
He took my sin and gave me his righteousness.
I have an inheritance I cannot lose.
I have salvation not probation.
I've been crucified with him, buried with him, I resurrected with him, baptized in him, was made a new creature sealed unto the day of redemption.
I'm complete in Christ.
He who knew no sin was made to be sin for me.
And the Calvinists want me to look at my day-to-day circumstances to find my identity?
I think not.
Most all denominations teach this.
They all have some Calvinism in them whether they'll admit it or not.
God wants love but I don't have a free will?
Then I can't love God.
That's God loving himself.
How preposterous.
Well that's all for now but before I go, question: Are you saved?
If not I remind you that the gospel that saves today is on this side of the cross.
It's the one Paul preached, and it's why he said, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached.
1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 1.
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached by which also ye are saved how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose the third day according to the scriptures. It's not popular anymore but this is the gospel that can save you.
He suffered and and took your death on that cross.
He was buried but the grave couldn't hold him.
And if you'll rest your faith right there, rest your faith in Christ and his finished work alone, the grave won't be able to hold you, either.
You'll have the power to come up, to rise, and spend all eternity with God.
Today God wants you to know that your sins were put out of the way at the cross as pertaining to
salvation your sins are no longer an issue.
There is no longer a way to get your sins forgiven.
They already are.
You can't get them forgiven again.
That would require another death.
More blood.
No, rest your faith in his finished work.
Remember, you only get two educations, the one you're given, and the one you give yourself.
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