Redemption #7 - The Dead Tulip of Calvinism

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   foreign [Music] we welcome everyone all of our students firing Grace School of ministry this morning this is redemption our Redemption block this is class seven this morning in the Redemption block this is going to be entitled The Dead tulip of Calvinism I say the dead tulip because tulip is the acronym used to define the five points of Calvinism and the reason we're addressing this in the Redemption block is because Calvinism is one of the Protestant or you know one of the views one of the system atic theologies that came out of the reformation and uh it it does teach about salvation now if it's wrong then we're dealing with something here that is serious and has infiltrated nearly all aspects of Christianity and uh of course I'm here to tell you today that 99 of it is wrong and it's produced a bad View and it's really produced even really a bad put put a bad character on God himself so um I know that Calvinists don't think so they they love to talk up the sovereignty of God you know but God is Sovereign but God is also created I believe free will they do away with that and we're going to get into that this morning and show you all of that but anyway let's let's get on to the PowerPoint here let's give you a little introduction here to John Calvin John Calvin was born July 10 1509 he died May 27th of 1564 he was a French Theologian and pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation he was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism aspects which include the doctrines of predestination and of the absolute sovereignty of God in Salvation of the human soul from death and eternal damnation in which doctrines Calvin was influenced by and elaborated upon the augustinian and other Christian traditions and Augustine was Roman Catholic we're going to deal with that a lot today because I'm going to show you that John Calvin pretty much got all of his theology from a Roman Catholic by the name of Augustine of Hippo anyway now pretty much today uh various congregational reformed and Presbyterian churches uh look to Calvin as their Chief Expositor of their beliefs and their this belief is spread throughout the world and so I'll say this morning that

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   along with Presbyterians and people who call themselves reformed you really have Calvinism Calvinism either in all five points or in uh at least several of their points some people will say they're three-point Calvinists some will say they're two um it's pretty much ridiculous but this this you know erroneous and uh demonic I believe doctrine of demons is kind of spread into everything you see part of it in the Baptist Church you see now Methodist churches when John Wesley stood firmly against this but a lot of Methodist churches have embraced this because uh you know it is it is deception so let's uh let's keep going I'll make my case again tulip this is what it stands for my students you're going to have to know this it will be on your test as we say but Tula the the Five Points of Calvinism now Calvin didn't develop This Acronym it was later done by followers of Calvinism but it pretty much and most all Calvinists except that this encapsulates the teaching of John Calvin first of all the T in tulip stands for total depravity uh the U is unconditional election or God choosing uh we'll get into what all these mean in a minute limited atonement which you're going to see I believe is the most Blasphemous and dangerous and really demonic doctrine of of all this then you have irresistible Grace for the I and then p is the perseverance of the Saints but what they mean by that is if you're one of the chosen one of the elect you're eternally secure uh to go to heaven no matter what you do no matter how you live and that's really where the doctrine of unconditional eternal security or once they've always saved comes from so let's let's look at what these break down of course Aaron said tulip eventually became the Cornerstone of the reformed theology and came into being when some of Cal and followers attempted to simplify some of his Theology and writings by using an acronym where each letter stood for one of the five fundamental tenets of Calvinism all of which are found in Calvin's Institutes of the Christian religion which is his most well-known and most exhaustive book of his theology is if you want to call it uh but let's look at the total depravity though for the T this is what they believe total depravity or inability uh Calvin taught and believed that as a consequence of Adam's sin also called The Fall every person born into this world is so morally corrupt and so enslaved to sin that he is incapable of repenting and believing the gospel and worthy of nothing but Everlasting damnation it is only God's grace that enables him to choose to follow God repent and have faith for Christ in

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   Salvation so the the calvinist this is kind of where they stand on this they take this verse right here John 6 44 no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day now if you take that at you know just face value you'd say well that you know the this total depravity idea that no one can choose to follow God out of their own will that God has to do it all um sounds plausible it sounds right but what have we learned here about hermeneutics or the laws of biblical interpretation you never take one verse alone and that creates your theology or your Doctrine because in the same book the same Gospel of John we see this uh and I'm not saying that this is not true but Jesus said here no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day that is a statement of Truth but if you take that alone and say well God's only drawing some but he's not drawing others that's what Calvinism says but let's look what Jesus said further on in the gospels this is what he said here and we're going to read this passage we'll we'll really just focus in here on verse 32 but this is John 12 31-36 so he said here now is the Judgment of this world now shall the prince of this world be cast out and I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me now that is important and then of course he goes on to tell them if you look down that they need to believe in the light while the light is with them see verse 6 he said while you have the light believe in the light that you may be Children of the light these things spake Jesus and departed and it hide himself from them now why would you tell people to believe if you knew there were people in front of you who could not believe because God had already predestined them to damnation now here we have the the the reason that the total depravity idea falls apart or you could say at least it may have a slim amount of Truth in it but the fact is God has dealt with it it's done he is drawing all men right so what does that do well that begins to make Calvinism Fall Apart because if we if we look at this verse where Jesus said if I be lifted up from Earth and he was talking about being lifted up on the cross dying for the sins of mankind he made that clear in John chapter 3 . so Jesus was saying once I am I'm crucified once I shed my blood once I die for the sins of mankind I will draw all men unto me so all men women children everybody the Holy Spirit the spirit of Jesus Christ is drawing all people from that point further even if you say it

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   wasn't that way before Jesus made it clear once I am crucified I will draw all men that means god is convicting God is speaking God is pulling on the conscience of all men meaning that all men women children everyone has now the ability to choose to believe and follow the Gospel of Jesus Christ to follow him as Lord and Savior as the Creator and let's continue on here this this takes us into the next point of Calvinism which is unconditional election now what that means and what they mean by that I'll say is they say unconditional election they say before the creation of The World God selected or chose a portion of humanity to be saved and the rest were predestined to Eternal damnation in hell he chose some to be saved he chose some to go to hell he predestined it and man's choices and free will has nothing to do with it your actions your behavior none of that has anything to do with it all right they go on to say that this election is not based on God looking into the future and seeing that the person would have some particular virtues or faith but is a decision based solely upon God's will however what do we have here it says here for this is good and acceptable on the sight of God our savior now the first two verse I couldn't get it all on this slide so the first two verses talk about God said that he he wants us to pray for all men and for kings and for those in Authority pray for everyone and he says that intercessions prayers he says for this is good acceptable in the sight of God who will have all men to be saved now this right here doesn't mean and I'm going to show you it doesn't mean that everyone's going to be saved it means he desires I'm going to show you that but this means that it is God who Wills all men to be saved now how can you say that God picks some for salvation predestined chose some for salvation predestined and chose some for hell and then the scripture says here plainly that God Wills or desires all men to be saved does that make any sense whatsoever I I I I can't even fathom really how anyone can believe Calvinism just simply based on this right here and there's more scriptures to go along with this of course but here's in first Timothy Chapter 2 here where it says he will all men to be saved or we'll have all men to be saved the word will here is thilo and it simply means you can see the strongs how it's translated will or would and you see that's 159 times will or would have uh 16 times desire 13 times desirous so what it's saying here and if you look at

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