Sunday School | Calvinism/Pre-Destination - We are Slaves to Sin

How are you guys? Good. How are you? Good. Lovely to see you all on this final pretty sunny day. Been a rainy week, but I'm glad we're here now.

So we are this morning really going to begin in earnest on what might be maybe the most contentious thing that we have talked about in this series. Anytime you talk about doctrine, you're necessarily going to be making a particular biblical claim or at least attempting to make a biblical claim on some question where there's disagreement. And for the next number of weeks, we're going to be talking about Calvinism, or predestination, or election, or sovereign grace, or soteriology, or reformed soteriology. This is one of those things that people tend to have a lot of disagreement about.

I have great sympathy if you have disagreements about this because I am a Calvinist, and by that what I mean is, I think that the framing generally understood under the label of Calvinism or predestination or election, I think it's accurate, I think it's what the Bible teaches, I think it's true. But I remember when I didn't think it was true. I remember when I specifically thought it was insane and crazy and bad, and so I know what it's like to be on that side of the equation.

We're going to talk about it and we're going to take several weeks to walk through this whole paradigm. As we do, I hope you know that no matter what I'm doing, I always like feedback, I like dialogue, I prefer dialogue to monologue. You're allowed to disagree with me, you're just not allowed to be wrong. And what I mean by that is, when it's all said and done, what we want to all do, myself included, is subordinate ourselves to what the scriptures actually say. We don't get to choose what we prefer to believe. Theology is not the sort of thing about which one can have an opinion. At least that is not something which we ought to have an opinion. We should have beliefs, and those beliefs should be informed by Scripture.

So we're going to try to make the case and walk through, and you can always disagree, you can process through, but let's do it not because we don't like it, but because we have biblical data that suggests that something is a more accurate way to describe things. The truth is strong, you can hit it with a hammer. I'm not that strong, but you can still hit me with a hammer and we'll see what happens. We'll just kind of process through softly with a hammer.

The TULIP Framework

The paradigm we're going to follow is known as TULIP, which is an ancient acrostic: T-U-L-I-P. It is my belief that very often when people start talking about Calvinism, they start too late in the TULIP. Properly, you want to talk about the T before you talk about the U, before you talk about the L, before you talk about the I, before you talk about the P.

Anybody remember what the T stands for? Total depravity. What's the U? The U is unconditional election. The L is limited atonement. The I? Irresistible grace. And then the P? Perseverance of the saints, sometimes stylized as preservation of the saints.

Usually, a conversation about election, about Calvinism, or whatever, begins at election. It begins at the U, the unconditional election. And everybody kind of tends to lose their mind right there. So really, most people's version of this is more of an OOLIP than a TULIP.

Having had this conversation a thousand times in the last thirty years, I promise you that if you don't start with a robust biblical understanding of the nature of fallen man—to which I think total depravity is an accurate picture—the conversation is going to go off the rails. So we're not going to worry about election, we're not going to worry about limited atonement or irresistible grace or perseverance of the saints, until we've really camped out to answer the question: What does the Bible say is the natural condition of fallen man? What are we like? And in particular, are we the sort of creature that will gladly surrender to Jesus? Are we the sort of thing that when we hear this story, that we can repent of our sins, and we can be forgiven, that we can walk in newness of life—when we hear all that, are we like, yes, that is what I've always wanted, I must have it? Or are we the sort of person, the sort of thing that when we hear that message we think, not for me, I don't need it, that's ridiculous, everything about this is stupid and I'm not interested?

If we are the kind of a thing that would naturally, when left to ourselves, gladly follow Jesus, but he won't let some of us because he has arbitrarily chosen not to, then Calvinism is a dark, dark tale. But if we are actually the sort of a thing that no matter how winsome the presentation, no matter how generous the offer, we are gonna say no thank you—but we probably won't say thank you. We'll just reject it out of hand. If we are that sort of a thing, then our only hope is that God would reach over the wall to change us, to fix the thing that is broken in us so that we can become the sort of creature that would respond in faith.

The entire question about Calvinism being beautiful or not is predicated on the reality of our fallen nature. How bad off are we? Does that framing make sense?

It is my contention that the very consistent, very thorough Genesis to Revelation picture of human nature—fallen human nature—is that we are the sort of a thing that will never respond in faith. No matter how beautiful the presentation, no matter how much we need it, we won't want it until and unless God fixes something that is fundamentally broken in us. That salvation is always necessarily initiated by him. That is the case that I'm gonna try to make for you guys. And we're gonna try to do it just by walking through a ton of Scripture. So I'm gonna blitz through this.

You came in, Bob—are you catching everybody? Did anybody not get one of these? This sheet here? This is just a compendium of Scripture. It could be longer but I thought this was enough. We're gonna walk through and I just want you to capture the picture that the Scriptures paint of fallen man. Are you ready? This is gonna be a lot of Bible because very often conversations about predestination devolve into philosophy. And frankly, I don't really care about the implications of your philosophical a priori assumptions. What we care about is the text. What has God said in his word?

Genesis 6: The Limits of One Passage

The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. — Genesis 6:5

I include this not only because it's a very strident statement of how bad off things are or were, but also to somewhat dismiss it, to somewhat put an asterisk next to this. Does anybody recognize the context of Genesis 6? What is it? Nephilim. Okay, this is the season of the Nephilim. What else is happening around this time? Noah. Noah, yes. So this is right before the flood. This is God's defense of why he had to flood the world and kill literally everyone.

I think it's reasonable to say that maybe Genesis 6:5 is not a description of everything at every moment in all times of human history. What he's saying is things are so bad, so so so bad that for these particular people, every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil all the time. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to say that that verse is always accurate at every point in human history, in every continent, in every culture. This one is somewhat specialized. However, at the very least, you've got to grant that they were, and therefore we are, the sort of a thing that can get to this point.

I would not build my case for total depravity on that because I do think it's somewhat contextualized. Almost every other passage on this page is not, and it is really describing a universal ubiquitous reality for human nature.

Jeremiah 17: The Deceitful Heart

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? — Jeremiah 17:9

Dave, does that passage ring to you at all? It does. Dave and I have the pleasure and the privilege of working with people whose lives are broken all the time. And we will often have a lament of having a conversation with somebody and you're like, they're just absolutely self-deceived. I don't think you need to be a pastor to see this. Do you recognize—does this resonate for you guys? Whether you see it in an employee, whether you see it in your spouse, or maybe as an act of grace, you see it in yourself. Have you ever been self-deceived, Bob? Once or twice. Once or twice. Caitlin, was it three times actually? It might have been. Right? This right here, our ability to lie to ourselves, to believe the thing that we want to believe—you guys, if you've been alive for any length of time, this is accurate, Charlie? It is accurate.

There's something about us speaking louder than ourselves. Or how about this?

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. — John 3

I want you to think about when somebody shares the gospel with an unbeliever and they're saying, listen, great news. You can leave the kingdom of darkness, the domain of darkness, you can come into the kingdom of light. It's so much better over here. All the shady stuff that has marked you—you don't have to continue to live like this. You don't have to remain in slavery to sin. You can come over here.

If you've ever done any evangelism at all, what you'll find is that people look into the light and they're like, "Thank you, no." Right? And why? According to John, why is it that men love the darkness and hate the light? Fear. Fear of what? That their deeds will be exposed.

The offer of the gospel, it is humiliating. It's like all of my badness, all of my brokenness on full display. You may have had different experiences in your life where you needed grace, but where grace was bitter. Because what it means is: I got to admit that I can't do it. I got to admit that what I am doing is wrong. And people's ability to be like, "I don't want to be seen"—this is absolutely on point. I've shared the gospel with thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and so often, they're just not interested. And a part of me is like, "How could you not want this?" But I know why they don't want it. It's because we hate the light, and we don't want to be exposed.

So this verse in John says, "They will not come to the light." It doesn't say that they're not able. It just says they won't because they're afraid. That implies they still have a choice. Well, okay. But we're not done. We're on like the third one. Before we're done, we're gonna address: can they? Will they? I mean, the number of ways the New Testament paints us. So I love that, but just hold onto that and we're gonna knock that down in about ten minutes. Maybe less.

There's the very next verse, verse 21 in John 3:

But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. — John 3:21

In other words, when you come to the light, it is exposing the fact that you got there because of God. That is what John is saying. Otherwise, that verse doesn't make any sense. And so that little bit falls under what we're gonna get to with the unconditional election. They're all today, by the way—you're gonna leave sad. There's nothing happy today. It's all bad the entire time. The good news doesn't start to come until next week. But what we're gonna see is "whoever does it"—like we're all turtles on fence posts. Do you know this illustration? If you ever see a turtle on a fence post, what do you know? Somebody put it there, right? There ain't no turtle climbing up a fence post. If you ever see a turtle on a fence post, 100% somebody else put it there.

Christians, you are turtles on fence posts. You did not do this. You cannot, you will not, you would not, you did not. Salvation is a gift, right? But that's next week.

Take a look at John 5. Here's more similar to what we just saw here. Jesus is talking to the Pharisees:

You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. — John 5

He's talking to people that were experts in the Hebrew scriptures. He said, "The whole thing is about me and you've memorized like a third of it and here I am, and you will not come."

If nothing else, guys, when you see Jesus enter the scene and his engagement with the Israel nation, the whole point is to prove that no one, no matter what—Romans is all about this. "What advantage then is there in being a Jew? Much in every way." And he lists all these things that they have, all the advantages that are theirs, but they will not come to him under any circumstances, left to themselves. They love the darkness, they hate the light, and it's not because they're Jews. It's not as if the Gentiles are any different.

Or how about this:

Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. — John 8:34

And now Jesus introduces a new concept. A second ago, it's that you don't want to, you refuse to. Now, when we begin to introduce the language of slavery, ability is a whole new category. Because what do slaves have to do?

They have to obey their master. And so, if your master is sin, then what do you have to do? You have to obey it. Right? Paul—Jesus drops this in John 8, skip ahead to Romans 6, kind of in the middle column. Paul makes an awful lot about this. Look at Romans 6:16-18:

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey. Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, you've been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. — Romans 6:16-18

Now, this violates my principle a little bit about not talking about any of the good news because Paul is speaking to believers who used to be slaves to sin and have been set free. They didn't break free, right? They were set free. And the thanks—he doesn't say, "Hey, thank you that though you used to be a slave to sin, you broke free." He says, "Thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you've been set free." The very fundamental nature of us—it's not just that we refuse to come into the light, it's not just that we love the darkness, but it's that we really are slaves.

And I want you to think about this. Come out of the text and pay attention to this. Okay? If we talk about election on the one hand, what is the opposite of election? If we talk about Calvinism on the one hand, what do we name my theological opponent in this debate? Arminianism. Okay, good. Give me a couple—just like we got Calvinism, we got free will, we got predestination. So what do we call this over here? Free will. So you guys ever driven by a Free Will Baptist Church? Like literally the name of the church is "Free Will Baptist Church."

This is going to take a couple of layers. So either you believe what Tim Henderson believes—that God is sovereign in salvation—or you believe that we have a free will. Okay? You hear this framing? It's very common. Calvinists and Arminians: election or free will. And the very categorization of free will contains within it a misnomer. So stay with me.

If you believe in free will, then you probably think that I don't believe in free will. So far so good? And you probably think that the reason I don't believe in free will is because I think that God is the great puppeteer, and he is sovereign over everything and he makes everything happen. And so you have two universes: one in which human beings are free to make their own decisions, and then one in this little theological backwater of Tim Henderson that says God is sovereign over all things. And we reject that because God doesn't want robots to love him, and he wouldn't think it was very much fun if he puts his hand up our back and makes us move our lips. And so either man is free or God is the puppeteer, and these are the two options. Does it make sense?

Here's the problem with that: the Bible never, ever, ever affirms either that human beings have a free will or that God is the manipulative puppeteer. The opposite of freedom is not a sovereign God. The opposite of freedom is slavery. And the Bible says over and over and over again that human beings are slaves. Not to God, but to sin. Does this make sense?

The Fundamental Nature of Humanity

When we're asking the question, "How bad off are we? What is the fundamental reality of human nature before the Holy Spirit intervenes?" Some people say the fundamental nature of humanity is that we're free. That God loves our free nature, that he made us with a free nature. The number of times that the free will crowd will trumpet as if everything God is doing is to the glory and honor of the freedom of humanity shows up all the time and it's ludicrous in each and every instance. Okay? God is not championing the freedom of man; he is lamenting our slavery to sin. The fundamental nature of human beings since the fall is not that we are free. It is that we are slaves. Not slaves to God, but slaves to sin.

Jesus came in order to free us, not from God, but from sin. So when Paul says in Romans 6, "You're slaves to the one whom you obey. You're slaves to sin." When he says it later in Romans 6:

You used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness. You were slaves to sin. Those things result in death, but now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, and the benefit you reap leads to holiness. — Romans 6

This is why in John, elsewhere, it's going to say that if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. What he's setting you free from is sin.

So, what's our fundamental nature? We refuse to come into the light, we won't come into the light. We're slaves to sin because we're not free. We're slaves. Did I beat that sufficiently to death?

Robin raises a scripture that says choose whom you will serve, and that denotes you have a choice. But at the same time, if we're slaves to sin, it says you will not, but I think sometimes they cannot.

I agree. They will not and they cannot. I think both are true. So Robin, the question is: doesn't the Bible tell us to make a choice? Doesn't it say things like, "Choose this day whom you will serve"?

It absolutely does, without question. And there is no contradiction. There's just some complexity that we haven't gotten to yet. I, Tim Henderson, freely chose to follow Christ. How can that be? We've got about five weeks till this is really made more clear. I became a follower of Christ as an act of my will, having been previously a slave to sin. What exists between those two realities is unconditional election, the irresistible grace of God. I made a choice to follow Christ because I was enabled to see His loveliness. The call to choose to follow Christ is real. It's not a fake choice. It's just a choice that I was not exercised until God graciously healed this particular broken thing in me. We're somewhat getting ahead of ourselves, but I think we will have an intellectually, logically, and biblically satisfying answer by the time we're done.

Slaves to Sin: Biblical Evidence

Let's keep going. We're slaves to sin. John 8 says this:

Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and now I'm here. I've not come from my own, but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Well, because you're unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father the devil and you want to carry out your father's desire." — John 8:42

Once again, we have not just unwillingness but incapacity. You're unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father the devil. We're going to repeatedly enter and mingle between unable to and unwilling to. We're going to use lots of different metaphors to describe it.

Here's how Romans 3 puts it. This is the passage that leads up to what I would say is maybe the most important paragraph in the New Testament:

There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. — Romans 3:10-18

This is Paul's summary statement. If you're following through Romans 1, 2, and 3, he's explaining that for two broad groups of people—both the Jews and the Gentiles—this is the deal. All the evidence for God is before us. It's plain to them because God has made it plain to them. Nevertheless, humanity to a man across the board wants to not believe. What Paul will say is that we suppress the truth in our wickedness. I don't want to know the truth, so I look away. You probably know this because you've probably done this. You have done this. You probably are aware of it. There we have this ability to be like: don't want to know the truth, just distract me until I forget it, so I can continue to live as I choose. Paul is saying this is the ubiquitous reality of human nature.

And therefore, his ultimate conclusion is:

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. — Romans 3:19-20

Those that believe that the rules are a ladder to climb—it's like, you're just wrong. That's not what it's there for. And if it was there for that, you'd never be able to do it.

Because the thing in us that is so fundamentally, deeply wired in is the rejection of God. If the fundamental obligation on every person in the world is to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength, then whatever else you do to help old women cross the street is pretty inconsequential if in fact you hate him. And this is exactly what Paul is saying, that our basic orientation to God who is the light is that we hate the light. We will not come into the light for fear that our deeds would be exposed.

So somebody says, "Hey, great news, you can know God." C. S. Lewis talks about in his own autobiography, which is called Surprised by Joy. There's a chapter that I've probably read 30 times that is his conversion. He explains his conversion and he says, "People talk about man's search for God. And I've always thought that that is like talking about the mouse's search for the cat. I wanted nothing to do with him. I wasn't searching for him. I was trying to get as far away from him as I possibly could get."

He describes God in that same passage as the hound of heaven. He describes himself as the most reluctant convert in all of England, as the one that he dreaded came to capture him. Now, Lewis is not a Calvinist, which is crazy that I love him so much because I do. Because he's so brilliant about so many other things. Even in his own conversion, he's not a Calvinist, but his own conversion is unmistakably Calvinistic. He even makes allusion to his own contradiction in that chapter.

We don't want him. We want to be as far from him as we can. Or how about this from Romans 8. Listen to this:

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mind set on what the spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. — Romans 8

This is one of Paul's more particular ways to describe total inability. And I should clarify: when we talk about total depravity, what we mean is not—and it is not the biblical view, and it is not my view that I'm trying to espouse—that all day long, unbelievers do nothing except run around ice-picking people to death. Okay? We're not saying that every inclination of the thoughts of your heart is to constantly murder everyone you meet. That's not the view.

Although, although there's a pretty strong case to be made—not so much biblically but historically—that given the right circumstances, that would be your nature. Have you guys read about the Stanford Prison Experiment? You guys know what that is?

The Stanford Prison Experiment: they get a bunch of college students, random. They say, "Okay, you are a prison guard. You are a prisoner. You are a prison guard. You are a prisoner." And then the prison guards are in charge and you can do whatever you want because it's your prison, you're the guards. Bearing in mind that the prisoners didn't do anything wrong—this is an experiment, these are college students.

This thing goes completely off the rails because the guards become power hungry with all of their authority, and so they're fire-hosing the prisoners and taking away their mattresses. They had to shut down the whole thing because this prison experiment turned into absolute Lord of the Flies. And the reality is that when we are in power, we become more and more wicked because we can.

Now, my argument about total depravity is not that we will constantly devolve into that at every moment—although I think under the right circumstances we will—but rather, total depravity is that every part of your life is affected by sin. Your intellect, your emotions, your will are all corrupted. And therefore, the unbelieving mind can't help but misunderstand things.

When Paul says here in Romans 8, "the sinful mind is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law nor can it do so." What that means is when an unbeliever hears the gospel—the beautiful, logical, reasonable gospel—it looks ugly and stupid to them because their mind can't resolve it, can't make sense of it because there's something so fundamentally wrong. When things that are actually lovely and that deserve to be honored and delighted in, instead it just looks like so much stupidity. And we see this over and over and over again.

Total depravity is not that all you do is wickedness at every second of every day, but that your intellect, emotion, will—the total person has been corrupted by sin, and cannot understand it, will not love it, and certainly will not choose it. Here's what he says in 1 Corinthians 2:

The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. — 1 Corinthians 2

Again, if you've ever done any evangelism, if you've ever had a conversation to explain the gospel and you did a good job, and then they're just like, "It just doesn't make any sense." This is that. If you've ever had a friend who is enslaved by their sin, they made some ridiculous choice and everything they're doing is just self-justifying. And you explain to them why they're thinking about it poorly and they're just like, "Talk to the hand"—they cannot hear. This is that.

Kelly had a helpful illustration. Our pastor when we were in college, Phyllis Mullen, when he was teaching on total depravity, he said: "Total depravity is the notion that if sin were blue, you would be blue all over. Not necessarily the deepest shade of blue, but that every part of your life has been tinged by blueness." That is, when we say total depravity, it's not the same as utter depravity. We're saying every part of your life—intellect, emotion, and will—has been touched by sin. If sin were blue, you'd be blue all over.

Chris added that Romans 7 shows this is the nature of even believers, because it doesn't escape you. Because it's your nature—"If I don't do what I want to do, the good I want to do, I don't do; the bad I don't want to do, I keep on doing all that." It's pervasive. It's corrupting.

The Blindness and Death of the Unbeliever

Second Corinthians 4:

The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. — 2 Corinthians 4

Fundamental human nature is blindness. I could show this to you, but you can't see it.

Not only is it an illustration of blindness, but listen to Ephesians 2:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. — Ephesians 2

All evangelism in the natural realm is as effective as evangelism in a graveyard. They're dead. Your words have no more power to raise the dead than they do to convert sinners. Nevertheless, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word. We are told, "Go into the graveyard and preach the gospel." And the promise is that as we do, something else is happening—and it's a mystery. It travels through our words, it superintends our words, it travels beneath our words—but if that something else is not happening, deaf people can't hear, blind people can't see, and dead people don't respond.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live. You followed the ways of the world, the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. — Ephesians 2

Again, a broadside against the claim of our freedom. We were not free in our lostness. We were slaves to sin and we followed the desires and thoughts of our sinful nature. We're slaves to it.

Later on in Ephesians 4, Paul says:

I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. — Ephesians 4

Now, Paul is a missionary to the Gentiles. So when you see "Gentiles" here, he's not talking about Christians of non-Jewish descent. He's talking about the pagans, the heathen, right? Whether your background is Jewish or Gentile, the unbelievers—here's the description:

They are darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. — Ephesians 4

He's given us a little more detail to explain why they cannot understand—because they're separated and their hearts are hard, because they want their hearts to be hard. And this is the nature of this very strange slavery: it's a willing slavery. I'm a slave to sin and I like being a slave to sin. I don't want to be set free from sin. This is where I want to be—I both refuse to come out, and I cannot come out.

Scriptural Illustrations of Spiritual Bondage

When you were dead in your sins, and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. — Colossians 2

Or consider this, maybe the most insightful picture:

The Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, that they will come to their senses. — 2 Timothy 2

We'll hit this again in a couple weeks. Repentance itself is a gift. That's astonishing, right? The only thing required of us is that we repent. But even that he gives us. God will grant repentance. Listen to this: if you're soaked in a free will framing, what Paul is saying—what should happen, must happen—is the only hope. If it happens, is that people would escape from the trap of the devil who has taken them captive to do his will.

Lost people don't have a free will. They're captives of Satan. They do his will. They're slaves to sin. They follow the cravings of their sinful nature. The situation is as bad as it could possibly be.

At one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. — Titus 3

That is a truckload of text, and I'm going to stop in about thirty seconds. I'm not cherry-picking this. So here's my invitation to you: take the next week and go find all the passages that I didn't include that contradict this. You come back and tell me that you have found a picture of humanity in the scriptures that says we do have a free will, that we're not slaves to sin, that we can hear, that we can see, that we are spiritually alive prior to conversion. And we can talk about that. Although, actually, you can talk with Dave or bring him with you. It'll be great. I don't have time right now.

In Acts 10, we could go to countless places where conversion happens. Does it follow from the fact of conversion that that capacity existed in that person's fundamental nature? We just can't do a debate right now. But you and I can debate in subsequent weeks when we have more time. It's not so much a debate; I just have a question on how you respond, because I think your presentation is very convincing.

We'll talk about election, we'll talk about irresistible grace—there will be more opportunities to do that. And I promise, I will never strawman this stuff. I just am out of time. So we will talk about it in a subsequent week. Read this, study the scriptures. Ask and answer the question: Into what estate did mankind fall? How bad off were we? What does God have to do to redeem us? What is our fundamental fallen nature like? And then we'll still be friends, right? Amen.