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T.U.L.I.P. - Lesson 9

Ten Effects of Believing the Five Points of Calvinism

It's important to determine theological truths by basing your ideas on scriptural texts, not just logic. These scriptural truths can encourage us to live our lives in relationship to God, worship him, tell others about him and look forward to his kingdom being realized on earth.

John Piper
T.U.L.I.P.
Lesson 9
Watching Now
Ten Effects of Believing the Five Points of Calvinism

Ten Effects of Believing in the Five Points of Calvinism

I. Introduction

II. These truths make me stand in awe of God and lead me into God-centered worship

III. These truths help protect me from trifling with divine things

IV. These truths help me marvel at my own salvation and humbled for my sin

V. These truths make me alert to man-centered substitutes that pose as good news

VI. These truths make me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular, God belittling culture

VII. These truths make me confident that the work God planned and began, he will finish, both globally and personally

VIII. These truths make me see everything in the light of God's sovereign purposes

IX. These truths make me hopeful that God has the will, the right and the power to answer prayer that people be changed

X. These truths remind me that evangelism is absolutely essential for people to come to Christ and be saved, and that there is great hope for success in leading people to faith but that conversion is not finally dependent on me or the hardness of the unbeliever

XI. These truths make me sure that God will triumph in the end


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Transcript
  • Romans 8:28-30 focuses on the idea that God works everything together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. The Bible holds up Romans 8:28 with foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of him. We imagine things about God and act as if they are true. Verses like Ephesians 1:4 and Revelation 13:8 refer to God's plans that were in place before the foundation of the world.
  • Dr. Piper explains his assumptions about the authority of scripture, the importance of understanding and applying what it teaches and the role of the Holy Spirit in making it possible. The five points of Calvinism were first articulated in response to five objections that Arminians had to Calvin's theology in the 1600's.
  • Irresistable grace means we are brought to the place where grace gives us faith. Conditional talk from God to us should not be taken to mean he is dependent on us to meet the condition or that we should consider ourselves self-reliant in meeting the condition he has laid out. He intends to enable us to meet the condition so he can act. If grace were not irresistable, we would not incline to God because of our condition of total depravity. In summary, total depravity means that apart from any enabling grace from God, our hardness and rebellion against God is total. Everything we do in this rebellion is sin, our inability to submit to God or reform ourselves is total, and we are therefore totally deserving of eternal punishment.
  • "Total" depravity doesn't mean you are as bad as you can be. The point of unconditional election is that there are no conditions we must meet to be among the elect. God chooses individuals he will bring to faith. The Arminian position is that God chooses a corporate entity, so that it is not that individuals are in the church because they are elect, but that they are elect because they are in the church. We don't belong to God because we come to Jesus, we come to Jesus because we belong to God.
  • We are unable to believe in Christ but we are accountable for doing so. In election, God had a design in mind when he chose the foolish, the weak and the low to populate his church so that no human could boast in his presence and so we would praise and exalt God.
  • Is God's election based on his foreknowledge of your faith, or is faith the effect of your election? (see Romans 8:28-30) Faith is the effect because all the called, believe. Romans 9:1-23 is an argument for the justice of unconditional election. The heart of the righteousness of God is his unswerving allegiance to always uphold his glory.
  • God's aim was the revelation of the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for glory. The apex of that glory is the glory of grace. The supreme demonstration of that grace was the death of Jesus. The atonement is the work of God in Christ, by his obedience and death, by which he cancelled the debt of our sin, appeased his holy wrath against us, and won for us all the benefits of salvation.
  • Even though believers are accepted in His Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, and slavery to sin is broken, sinful desires progressively weakened by the power of a superior satisfaction in the glory of Christ, yet there remain remnants of corruption in every heart that give rise to irreconcilable war and call for vigilance in the lifelong fight of faith. All who are justified will win this fight.
  • It's important to determine theological truths by basing your ideas on scriptural texts, not just logic. These scriptural truths can encourage us to live our lives in relationship to God, worship him, tell others about him and look forward to his kingdom being realized on earth.

God is sovereign and has planned everything about our salvation from before the foundation of the world. Romans 8:28-30 focuses on the idea that God works everything together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose.

We are thankful for John Piper's willingness to share these lectures with us. Copyright 2014 by Desiring God Ministries. Used with Permission. For more information, please visit www.DesiringGod.org.

Dr. John Piper
T.U.L.I.P.
LD625-09
Ten Effects of Believing the Five Points of Calvinism.mp4
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.DesiringGod.org. Here we are now in this final session, and I want to talk about ten effects of believing these things. I hope I can address a few of the things that have been asked me. I don't know where it might fit, so I'm going to say it right now. Somebody asked me about, Are you going to say anything about Hyper Calvinism? So let me say a word about it. I'll define it and then I'll say why I'm not it. Hyper Calvinism doesn't mean serious. Real Calvinist. Like seven pointers. That's not what. Hyper hyper Calvinism is a technical phrase from the 18th century, and it referred especially to people in England who carried the doctrine of election and irresistible grace to an unbiblical conclusion, namely, that the only people to whom you should preach the gospel and offer its benefits are those in whom you see evidences of election. Because they're the only ones for whom it will work. Real bad conclusion. And the main opponent was Andrew Fuller, and his main book, in response to Hyper Calvinism, was gospel worthy of all acceptance week. You can get all of his works in which he argued, No way does Calvinism imply you should only preach the gospel to those in whom you see some evidences of election. This is not a whiff in the Bible to imply that you preach the Gospel indiscriminately to everyone. Whosoever will let him come. Behold, I stand at the door and knock you open the door. I come here. That's not the whole story. The true story. So I'm not a hyper Calvinist. I hate hyper Calvinism. There are many around today, but it's an example of human logic trumping biblical clarity.

[00:02:58] Armenians are prone to this. Calvinists are prone to this. Anybody who is loving to see things fit together coherently can fall prey to the being led by logic, not being led by Jesus. And the way we've approached this seminar is at least an effort to be governed by texts, not by. Well, if this is true, then this must be true. And this must be true. And this must be true. And so that's why I believe in limited atonement. I heard that argument so many times that Calvinists are driven by their ironclad, ironclad logic to unbiblical conclusions. Well, that's what I see in Armenian ism, but I don't see it here. History will judge whether that's what's governing me or not. Whoever won these truths I'm just talking about. T u l, i. P and all of the worldview surrounding it. These truths make me stand in awe of God and lead me into the depth of true, God centered worship. He recalled a time I first saw while teaching Ephesians at Vessel late seventies. That threefold statement of the goal of God's work, namely to the praise of the glory of His grace. That's why we were created. That's why we're redeemed. That's why everything exists. To bring praise to the glory of the grace of God, supremely manifest in Jesus. It has led me to see we cannot enrich God, and therefore His glory shines most brightly, not when we try to meet His needs, but when we are satisfied in him as the essence of our needs. From him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory forever. Worship becomes an end in itself. It has made me feel how low and inadequate are my affections so that the Psalms of longing come alive and make worship intense.

[00:05:35] The point of all that is this. Worship in America. I would say in general is fairly flippant. Most churches, it's just kind of entertainment like. And Cavaliers kind of like watching. Country Western show. Cool songs, neat songs, neat rhythm. Everybody's With You kind of puts the flavor of the weight of glory missing. And my point is, these doctrines move you in another direction. It's not a style issue. It's really not, though it. It does have some effect on the way drums are used. Guitars are used, organs are used. It does have some effect. But I don't want you to jump to conclusion. Well, if you're really serious, then you do Handel's Messiah every Sunday and you would never, ever use a guitar. Kind of. It's kind of homespun down low. Hello? No, no. You can be as worldly and superficial and man centered while singing the Hallelujah chorus as when you sing something as simple as hallelujah are all in who you are. Hey, Lou. I have heard that song mocked so many times. Who montrer? The Marge is an evangelical montre. Well, it isn't a mantra if you weave it into substance the way it should be. Woven it. And there comes a moment in the service when much riches have been spoken or read or prayed or preached. And all you should do is for a season, say hallelujah. But thinking through those things will be helped by what you believe about God. And I'm afraid by and large, the American church is pervasively or many and therefore light. Number two, these truths help protect me from trifling with divine things. One of the curses of our culture in America is banality, cuteness, cleverness. Television is perhaps the main sustainer of our addiction to superficiality and triviality.

[00:08:40] God is dragged into this, hence the trifling with divine things. That's my beef with television. I don't have a television. I haven't had a television for 40 years except for three years in Germany when we used it to learn German. The issue for me is not mainly sex and violence, but that has its problems, but its banality. I you just got to realize how vulnerable I am. To. Banter. I just can't get sucked in so easily. To report sound and clever talking, getting less word and using puns. And I am a sucker. So what can I do to guard myself? Because if I go there of what use will I be to anybody except here's another entertainer. We don't need another. I couldn't compete with the best. Joel Osteen, if I want to. That's not what I'm after. So I'm after. Not trifling with the divine. I'm after earnestness. So I've got to turn it off. Best way to turn it off is not to have it. I raised four sons. They're all pretty relevant guys that are kooky. They never watch television in our house, ever. They watch it at other people's house. And sometimes we get a TV for the Final Four or something like that. You won't ruin your kids. I just noticed at my son's blog this morning, Abraham has a blog called 22 Words, and every entry is two words long. He said. Some parents let their kids watch television and movies every day. Can anyone explain this to me? That's good. That's really good. I raised this kid. Earnestness is not excessive in our day. It might have been once. And yes, there are imbalances in certain people today who don't seem to be able to relax and talk about the weather.

[00:11:34] I know that's where a sick person would take my my my point here. They would say, oh, Piper wants us to be so blood or dust all the time. You can't ever they have you. Well, that's not where I'm going. You've been around long enough. I think we're pretty healthy. Folks are just normal run of the mill. If somebody slips on a banana peel and wearing a tuxedo. I'm laughing, folks. No, no, no. They all go down huffing and puffing around with their nice clothes, and God puts a banana peel in their place and brings them down. I'm laughing. The world is filled with that sort of thing, and it is meant to be enjoyed, but to cultivate a whole culture of triviality so that nobody ever experiences any significant season of seriousness. That's a sick way to do culture. And so when some there's a huge pressure on me as the leader in the pulpit of this church to constantly dumb down and trivialize Sunday morning. And I come back with the argument isn't one hour out of 168 worthy of some passion and seriousness and Rivet could focus on the great. They always have to dump everything into Sunday morning. So we really here have a mary mingle in the church so that people feel friendly here because if you do serious every Sunday, you ordinary people don't feel friendly. That's a huge pressure. Most churches govern all that they do to feel friendly. Everything carpet on the floor. Like a living room. Everything else is just this is got a few warm, sweet, homey fireplace living room, I think. Where in life will reverence happen? Where will anybody ever feel domed and reality. If it's not here, it's not going to happen anywhere else.

[00:13:57] Not happening at home on television. Not happening on the Internet. Not happening around the meals at home. Where till pray I had no way would elevate. Bethlehem is having that figured out and being the ideal experience. We're not. Good grief. But oh my. My point is, if you see God this way, it'll have an effect on what you want to see happen when the people gather to honor this God. Number three, these truths make me marvel at my own salvation and feel humbled for my sin. It's interesting that after laying out the grade versus three through 14 of God wrought salvation in Ephesians one, Paul prays, you notice that that the prayer starts at verse 17. I think he prays in the last part of the chapter that the effect of that theology and the first part of the chapter will be the enlightenment of our hearts, so that we will marvel at our hope and at the riches of the glory of our inheritance and at the power at work in us. That is the power to raise the dead. So those three things that we will marvel at the glory of our inheritance and at the hope and the power, hope, inheritance, power. And he's praying it. Which means that he knows verses three through 14 by themselves may not awaken anybody's wonder. It may not affect anybody's heart. He just said the most spectacular things that can be said about God in Christ. In verses 3 to 14 of Ephesians one. And he knows it's just words. Unless. I should really read it to you. For this reason, I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and the love you have for all the saints. I do not cease to give thanks for you.

[00:16:40] Remembering you in my prayers. And here's what he prays. This is my prayer for Bethlehem. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation. In other words, a spirit that when you read this paragraph, you see. See the West. You see it as revelation of God. You are communing with God. It's revelation. It's not just words in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your heart enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which you've been called. Well, you just pray that. Just read it right, Paul? No, no, no. You can read it, but if you don't pray it, you may not see it. And the riches. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? But haven't you just described the riches? Yes, but I know that you can read them and nothing happened. So he's praying. He's asking for divine work to be done in the heart. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us, who believe he follow the train of thought on down into two five? I want you to realize that you were dead in trespasses and sins, and now God has raised you from the dead so that you are stunned at your salvation. Just the point here. Every ground of boasting is removed and broken hearted joy comes. Edwards lived in these things. This is my favorite paragraph from the book Religious Affections, which I mentioned, devastated me in 1972 and three. I was sitting in a rocking chair that I bought from my wife because she was pregnant. And when she wasn't in it, I was in it. We didn't have any services on Sunday night and every Sunday night for about I don't know how many months.

[00:18:49] I read the religious fictions about Jonathan Edwards, and I could only read two or three or four pages a night because they were overwhelming. As he unpacked how the glory of God affects the affections of the heart, which is shaping everything, I think and do. Here's what he wrote. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. Their hope is a humble hope and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is humble, broken hearted joy. That phrase. I'd never heard that before. I don't think I'd ever heard of phrases like that in my life at age 25. And now to me, it's one of the most important phrases in the world. And leaves the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child, more disposed to a universal loneliness of behavior. That's the effect of seeing the God of Jonathan Edwards, the God of the Bible. Number four. These truths make me alert to man centered substitutes that pose as good news. There's something about believing the doctrines of grace, which is another name for these five points, the doctrines of grace that alerts you to be able to detect ideas posed as good news, which art could then madoc the pleasures of God. I try to show that in the 18th century in New England, the slide from the sovereignty of God led to Armenian ism, then to universalism and then to Unitarianism. The same thing happened in England in the 19th century after SPURGEON in Murray's biography of Edwards documents the same thing quote, Calvinist convictions waned in North America. They've never returned. As to central the central force they had in the first Great Awakening. God may be doing something like that now. I don't know.

[00:21:22] I'm encouraged on a lot of hands of what I see in the renewal of these things. Calvinist convictions waned in North America in the progress of the decline, which Edwards had rightly anticipated. Those Congregational Churches of New England, which had embraced Armenian ism after the Great Awakening, gradually moved into Unitarianism and Universalism, led by Charles Chauncey. You can read the same thing in J. Packer's Quest for Godliness. Page hundred and 60. How Richard Baxter forsook these teachings and how the following generations reaped a grim harvest in the Baxter Church in Kidderminster. These doctrines are a bulwark against man centered teachings in many forms that gradually corrupt the church and make her weak from the inside. All the while looking strong and popular. The church is the of the living. God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth. Word that she were wood, that she were that. So the point there is beyond what you are able presently to articulate, believing the central glorious things provides you with a kind of ballast in your boat so that as the winds come against your your sailboat, they'll they can tip you, but they won't tip you over because there's just something about these doctrines that hold you from making many mistakes. So, you know, when people ask, you know, what do you do at Bethlehem to protect people from all the false teachings that come at them over the years? And my answer isn't, well, we have classes on every one of them, you know, every single false teaching. And everybody has to go to those classes and everybody has to become aware of what's coming down the pike. There's no that's hopeless. Rather, we stay close to the center and just keep hammering away at the magnificence of God, because there's just something about a church in which you feel the weight of the majesty of the glory of God.

[00:23:45] That is a safe place. Doctrinally, they're not getting blown around. They're going nowhere. They're not trendy people. Number. Number five. These truths make me groan over the indescribable disease of our secular, God belittling culture. I can hardly read the newspaper or look at a TV ad or a billboard without feeling. I do watch TV ads at, you know, Pizza Hut on vacation or Billboard without feeling the burden that God is missing. When is the main reality in the universe and is treated as a non-reality, a tremble at the wrath that is being stored up? I'm able to be shocked. So here's the point. Most Christians aren't shocked when they read the paper that there's no section on God. But a big win on sport and a big win on business and a big win on entertainment. And God got. Totally. That didn't shock anybody. He's just gone. Watch TV 24 hours. Zero. God, maybe a swear word, maybe mocked in some stupid priestly caricature. But, God, nobody's shocked. But if you believe these things, you'll feel shock. It enables you to keep feeling like that God created a universe in which people are ignoring him. Because if you don't feel some shock, you won't be able to articulate the dangers of hell with any credibility. A pray for awakening revival. I try to preach to creative people that are so God saturated that they will show and tell God everywhere and all the time we exist to reassert the reality of God and the supremacy of God in all of life. Number six. These truths make me confident that the work which God planned and began. He will finish. Both globally and personally, the whole doctrine of perseverance was intended to make that plain, but just know how emotionally precious that is to me.

[00:26:26] God's got a lot of work to do on me yet I don't know whether I'll live a year or ten or 20 or. Die today. But it is massively encouraging to me that God is sovereignly committed to work on me. And never let me go. And that he will do that globally. He's going to finish the Great Commission. He's sovereign. This gospel of the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come. God intends that there be a completion of the Great Commission, and He is God. He did not say as his last word of authority in heaven and on Earth belongs to me. Go make disciples of all the nations. I'll be with you till the end. Oh, how that should resonate in our minds because of your sovereignty that these doctrines preserve every seven. These truths make me see everything in the light of God's sovereign purposes. From Him and through Him and to Him are all things to him be glory forever and ever. Every all of life relates to God. There's no compartment where he's not all important. The one who gives meaning to everything, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. All of it eating, drinking, seeing God's sovereign purpose worked out in Scripture. And hearing Paul say that he encompasses all things. According to the accounts of his will. Makes me see the world in this way. So you're listening to NPR, and every single interview has to do with God. They don't know that he never gets the proper credit. I got so furious at an interview I listened to yesterday is what I did. I turned it off.

[00:28:41] It's a sickness, But I listen for a while. I want to. I want to know my culture well, know what I'm dealing with. But I'm hearing everything through this grid. Every year. The annual games in northern Canada right now have to do with God. A gay doctor. Writing poetry and extolling how poetry helps him be. A better doctor has to do with God. That's the one I got so upset about. I listened to my 15 minutes of it and hear the whole thing through. How does poetry relate to God? Was Doctor like God? And then this whole gay thing came out and there was no sense of moral concern, but only celebration. And I couldn't take it anymore because God says that doctor is going to go to hell if he doesn't repent. But that wasn't coming out. Just like the rest of us will go to hell if we don't repent. Number eight. These truths make me hopeful that God has the will, the right, and the power to answer prayer, that people be changed. Now, this is the one that we talked about some last night with some of you. So I want to make sure you hear this one and the next one, because these are among the most common questions raised for those who believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. Why pray? But if you start to think about it and go just a little further in, the answer becomes why pray if you're in Armenia? What is prayer? Prayer is asking that God do something. And if you ask him to do something, you are telling him, I believe you have the right and authority and power to do it. Armenians don't believe that he has the right and authority and power to save anybody.

[00:31:06] Do they? I mean, just be honest. No caricature here, no straw man. Prevention. GRACE Yes, do that. LORD But don't sovereignly push them over the edge. You don't have a right to do that because they have ultimate self-determining power to seal the deal. So don't do that. I never pray that way, especially when my kids are lost. Well, it has got to. Your son. Sneak up on him and give him a little nudge. But don't save him. Because he's got to he's got to do the last deal, too. Don't do that for him. Leave him in his heart resistant frame. I've sat across from him at too many Pizza Hut tables to feel any hope in that. Oh, I prayed. Oh, I prayed and prayed. Just like you said. You pray. Save him. Do whatever you got to do. Surround him, capture him. Take out the heart of stone. Put in the heart of flesh. Give him a new spirit. Right. The Lord His heart. Hope in the eyes of the blind. Open the ears of the deaf. Praise the dead. Save my son. That's the way I pray. Armenians cannot pray like that. Now, you may say because of some philosophical presupposition, you bring that. But if God has predestined everything, what's the point? If there's a board and God predestined that there be a nail in the board flush. Take a hammer. Hit the nail. Don't say, okay, you will let this nail be in the board. I get started. It's not the way God works. No houses get built like that. No remodeling of kitchens happened that way. There's no doubt that God wills every nail that's ever to be sunk. Not one hair turns white or gray. Apart from his will, not one bird falls from the sky.

[00:33:47] Not one nail. Is it a two by four anywhere on the planet? But God? Will it show? But he wills it through hammers. And so through prayer. Don't don't play games with God here. Don't do logic on God here. Obey the Bible. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock on the door will be open to you. You have not because you ask. Not if you've got a philosophical problem with that. Shelve it. I've got none. God wills means and God wills. And if He wants me to participate in the means. Hey. Oh, happy to do it. What a dignity. There are things that do not happen in this world because we don't ask God to do them. And they would have happened had we asked God to do them. Not because God doesn't predestined all things, but because he predestined means as well as ends. And when we don't use the means, that's in evidence that the predestined end of that means also wasn't predestined. But it would have happened had you done the means. You would have shown that that means was predestined and the end was predestined. That is no small calling. So. The effect of these doctrines on my prayer life is to make me pray with an amazing sense of destiny. I mean, there are teachings about prayer in the Bible that are simply mind boggling. Like all of them, But this one in particular, Matthew 935 to 38, where Jesus looks on the crowd and they're like sheep without a shepherd. And he says, Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers and do his harvest. What? The Lord of the Harvest knows who is needed to get the harvest.

[00:35:57] Although he did tell it. Watch out. That you don't use logic to silence the Bible, The Lord of the Harvest says. Ask me to put laborers in the harvest. Ask me now. You might say Why? You know harvest better than I do. You know where laborers are needed better than I do. You know exactly what needs to be done. What's the point of telling me to ask you to do it when you know what needs to be done and intend to get it done? And I think he would get a little stern with me if he heard me talk like that. And he'd say, You want to have part of this or don't you? You should keep your mouth shut. Get on your knees and move my sovereign arm. Because that's the way I've set up the world. This great commission is going to happen by the preaching of the Gospel, and the gospel is going to be preached because people pray for laborers. What a dignity. What a calling, folks. The reason you don't pray more is because you'd hope. This. Practically speaking, I don't prepare. I look at how quickly I get up from my knees to soften up that stuff to do to make something happen in the world with not doing like believe what you're doing here on your knees is changing the world. You can move Afghanistan, you can move your kids, you can save marriages. You can alter political courses. You move the world when you pray. And we'll do much of it. All I can imagine is we just don't believe this. My prayer life will not be enhanced by abandoning the sovereignty of God. My prayer life is sustained by believing the God whom I'm asking to do this impossible thing.

[00:38:31] Can't do it right. So please do not use the doctrines of grace to argue against a life devoted to prayer. Let it have the other effect. Number nine are almost done. These truths remind me that evangelism is absolutely essential. For people to come to Christ and be saved, and that there is great hope for success in leading people to faith. But that conversion is not finally dependent on me or limited by the hardness of the unbeliever. This is simply the counterpoint or the corresponding point of prayer. Prayer is a God ordained means to achieve God's pointed purposes, and evangelism is a God appointed means to achieve God's saving purposes. So don't say, Oh, okay, you believe in predestination and that all of those who are for known are predestined in China or in Indonesia or in New Orleans. And God's going to save them. And I don't need to go there. Nobody needs to preach to them because they're predestined. And if they're going to be saved, they're going to be saved. What a mockery of the truth in the Bible. No, I have many people in this city, Paul. Therefore, open your mouth. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them all so they will heed my voice. Where they get a hearing, how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent? How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good tidings of good. Nobody gets saved without hearing the gospel. I just saw a new book responding to inclusive ism. Robert Peterson and somebody else. It's a very needed book. What that means is it argues that you got to hear the gospel to be saved, not that God is saving people, you know, in Hinduism and saving people in Buddhism and saving people in Jewish faith and so on.

[00:41:42] I got an email yesterday from one of the. Rectors at a large downtown Minneapolis church that I won't name here. Sending to us downtown clergy the paragraph that they were going to put in all of their materials during Holy Week to the effect that we believe Jews are saved through another covenant besides believing in Jesus. So you can go downtown Minneapolis. And I could point you for massive churches that do not believe evangelism of Jewish people is necessary. That's tragic. Those who have the son have life. Those who do not have the son do not have life. They are condemning the Jewish people to hell by their unwillingness to evangelize them and call them to faith in Jesus. Not sure what to do with that email yet. I'm praying about it. I took one of those pastors out to eat several years ago on this issue. It's not a new issue. And I quoted to him. Acts 1345 to 48, where Paul preaches to the synagogue and he says to the Jews, Since you regard yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, I turn to the Gentiles and offer them Jesus. I said, Doesn't that imply if they don't believe in Jesus, they don't get eternal life? And he said, That's your interpretation. Brothers and sisters, Calvinists. Passionately believe in evangelism. Because we're emboldened and encouraged that God may actually sovereignly be pleased to use our wimpy words to do miraculous things. Who am I to save anybody? You know, Jesus said to Paul, I send you to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may have an inheritance among all those who are sanctified by faith in me. Next 26 years.

[00:44:51] 18. I send you to open their eyes? We can imagine policy. I can't open anybody's eyes. I can't make Satan lose his power over people. I can't do that. God. I know that. You're just the mouth. And if you don't go, it won't happen. But if you go, I'll go with you. And when you open your mouth, the gospel will become the power of God under salvation. I will see to it. Finally, these truths make me sure that God will triumph in the end. I am God. There is no other. I am God. There is nothing like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times. Things not yet done. Saying my council shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose. I don't know how you keep going today if you don't believe that we're surrounded by increasing secularism, increasing pluralism, increasing open assault on Christ and his church. How do you keep going? Only because you believe in the sovereignty of God. He's going to finish his purpose. He's going to do what he said he would do. He will triumph in the end. My council will be established. Or to sum it all up. God gets the glory. We get the joy. And I wouldn't want it to be any other way. Prime. Father, You've been kind to us. In this seminar. You have revealed yourself to us in your word. We do not take for granted. Did not our hearts burn within us as we saw your self opened in the Scriptures? And now I pray that this would be a launching pad into a lifetime of seeing. A lifetime of study. A lifetime of meditation. A lifetime of savoring. A lifetime of enjoying you. A lifetime of obedience.

[00:47:31] A lifetime of sacrifice. A lifetime of prayer. A lifetime of evangelism. A lifetime of worship. A lifetime of love. Of the brethren and love of our enemies. A lifetime of living. These things in such a self evidencing way that the world will see. And you will get the glory that you deserve. Hallowed be your name. In Jesus name, I pray. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, Pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit desiring God online at w WW dot desiring God dot org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again, our website is w WW dot desiring God dot org. Or call us toll free at 1888346 4700. Our mailing address is desiring God. 2601 East Franklin Avenue. Minneapolis, Minnesota. 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.