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Transcript 391B — Free Will Versus Predestination
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I would like to ask you about something you were talking about just a few minutes ago, about predestination, and those being chosen from the foundation of the world. Is it not true that we have been given the power of choice, that we have our own will? I don't understand how these two things are operative at the same time. If the Gospel is for everyone and we have choice, then how could we be predestinated? That would seem like He has a few chosen out. How can it be for everyone if only certain people are predestinated?
HC: Let me read to you from Ephesians 2:1-3. He's talking here about those who became saved: "And you hath He quickened, hath He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, where in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air (that's according to Satan), the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conduct in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others." Now that's my condition before I was saved.
Now you say we are told that we have a free will. All right. Now let's examine these three verses. What is my will interested in? The Bible says here. I'm interested in the lusts of the flesh, I'm a child of wrath, I'm a slave of Satan, I walk according to his power, I'm dead. I'm spiritually dead. So can a corpse decide to become alive? You see the problem of our will?
We like to say we have a free will. This is the deceitfulness of sin. We like to say, "I have the freedom of choice." But the fact is, our minds, our whole beings, are sold out to Satan. And we're so rebellious against God that unless God would intervene in our life and qualify our will, we would never turn to Him.
CALLER: But there are obviously people who do not turn. Then he is only making certain people able to be turned?
HC: As a matter of fact, there is nobody who will turn to Him. And as a matter of fact, yes, God in his sovereign good pleasure decides whom He is going to save.
CALLER: But how can the Gospel be for everyone then?
HC: Because God ordains this to be. Let's look at the picture. God comes, first of all, to the human race, and puts them in this beautiful creation, marvellous beyond words, and gives all kinds of evidence everywhere that there's a Creator God. But mankind says, "We don't want You. We'll go our own way. We have our evolutionary theories. We have our own ideas about what this universe is. We're not interested in God." God ought to stamp us all out and send us to hell just for that.
Then God comes along with a magnificent salvation program by which anyone at all who would respond to Christ can be saved. And again mankind says, "Forget it, God. We're not interested. We don't care about Your salvation program, as loving and as gracious and as merciful as You say it is. We don't want it." And for the second reason God ought to send the whole human race to hell, every last man, woman and child. We don't deserve salvation at all, ever. We are altogether rebellious.
But God says, "I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail [I'm going to have a people for Myself, whether they want it or not]." And so He, in His sovereign good pleasure, makes a decision to save one of these human beings. Now is He being unkind to the rest? No. The rest don't want this salvation. It's His good pleasure if He wants to save one. And in order to save this one, He had to pay an enormous price. God Himself has to endure the wrath of God, the equivalent of an eternity in hell, to pay for this man's sins.
So nobody can complain about it. It's God's sovereign good pleasure to do this. And so it's just incomprehensible that God in His sovereign love would decide to save as many as He has.
This is the message of salvation. Now suppose that you're unsaved, and you say, "Well, that means that if I'm not one of God's elect, there's no point in even listening to the Gospel. There's no point at all." Well, let's think about this. Suppose that you were in a situation where you were on a ship, let's say, and you struck an iceberg, as the Titanic of old. And suppose the ship's captain quickly made a count of the life boats and found that only 10% of the passengers could be saved. There was only that much space in the life boats, if they were crowded as full as they could be. And so he quickly wired to shore to find out who of the passengers must be saved. And so finally, as quickly as possible, the wire came back with the names of those who could enter the life boats, and nobody else was to enter.
Now you're standing there, and you know that that ship is going to go down any minute, and you know your only safety is in the life boats, and you know that only certain names had been named to go into the life boats. Now what are you going to do? Are you just going to stand quietly by and wonder, "I wonder if my name is going to be called?" Of course you're not. You're going to be clamoring, you're going to be running to the captain, or to anybody else, "Is my name there? Is my name there? I want to be saved, too! I don't want to stay on this ship. I want to be one of these who was named."
And that's exactly the posture we ought to have if we're unsaved. We don't know whether we're one of God's elect. That's beside the question. If we realize that what God is saying is true, then we're going to begin to pray to the Lord, "Oh, Lord, have mercy on me. Lord, have mercy on me. I don't know if I'm one of God's elect, but I know that I don't want to go to hell. I know that I want Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. Oh Lord, save me!"
Now the Bible says that those who seek Him will surely find Him. And this person will become saved. And then, when he begins to search the Bible to find out why he had this enormous desire to be one of God's elect, he will find out that it was because he was one of God's elect. Only those whom God is drawing will ever respond to the Gospel.
Now this is a wonderful, wonderful teaching, because this means that if we have an unsaved loved one who's as hard as nails in his sin, as wicked as he can be, if he's repudiated the Gospel at every turn...look. We can pray for him because if God would choose to save that man or that woman, God can break down the hardest will that you want to name.
Read Romans 9 very carefully. You will find there that it declares that God will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and it depends not upon man's will or exertion.
CALLER: But then we don't have any will of our own to say, "I want this"?
HC: We cannot take one smidgen or ounce of credit for our salvation. We can never say, "I became saved because in my will I decided for Christ." There's no credit we can receive. All we can say is, "I'm saved and I don't understand why God chose me, why He inclined my will." He inclined my will.
When Lazarus was in the tomb, there's no way that Lazarus could respond to the call of Jesus to come forth except Christ qualified him altogether. And that's a tremendous example of our salvation.
CALLER: Well, that is kind of confusing, but all right. Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you so much for calling and asking those good questions. Good night.