Gooding, David: 2 - Why isn’t Everybody Saved?

Now, this is our final session that will lead on to the period of questioning. The final session is a little shorter than the others, though it so happens that the topic that I must briefly discuss is a topic that would demand a whole week's seminars and not just forty minutes of time. But I mentioned that when we consider the sovereignty of God, then sooner or later, uh three major questions will arise in our minds. The first question is the question of evil. If God is sovereign and all powerful and cares for justice, why does he not put down evil and evil men? How did evil arise anyway in the first place? The second question is what we call the problem of pain. If God is almighty and can do what he likes, and is all-loving and really loves us, his creatures, why do so many people suffer so much pain? Now we come to the third of the questions, and we may put it like this. If God is almighty and all powerful, and is in ultimate control, and really wants all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, how is it that so many people remain unsaved? This is a problem that has exercised some of the profoundest minds in the church over the course of many centuries. And I repeat, I do not propose or suppose that I'm going to solve it for you in these few brief moments. I have provided a list of scriptures and comments that you now have in your hand. I have provided them, and they will raise all kinds of questions, more than I shall have time to this afternoon. But you need not turn to them now. These are by way of being a little prize, uh, for coming along, you'll see, that you can now take home and put in your china cabinet and say, I won that, uh, at the seminars in Lucan, you'll see, or else you could take it to your study, and perhaps that would be preferable, and think through them prayerfully and in light of the scripture. I trust that you will take them as from one brother to another, uh, as a help towards the understanding, the true understanding of this great problem. Now, when we face the fact that many do not trust the Savior, many remain unsaved, people will come to different conclusions as, uh, by way of explanation. Those who emphasize the sovereignty of God will come up with a decided emphasis on one side. Those that emphasize the free will of man and man's responsibility will come up with a set of answers rather on the other side of the scale. It has been, as I say, debated over many centuries. The great reformer for whom God be praised, Calvin himself, following Saint Augustine. When he came to face this problem, if God is sovereign, why are so many people, uh, remain unsaved? Uh, gave as his answer, it was in this connection, as I understand it, that he proposed the answer, that God is sovereign, and in his sovereignty he has chosen some to be saved. They will be saved because God is sovereign in his choice. His grace is irresistible, and so having chosen some, he calls them, and his call is effectual. He shows them his grace, and his grace, because he is sovereign, proves irresistible, and they are saved. Regenerate, they are then born again and given the spirit of God, justified by faith, of course, and they to the end will endure, uh, because of God's sovereign choice and sovereign plan and purpose. They will also say on that side of the explanation that man had free will given him by God at the beginning, but man using his free will to disobey God, fell, and in that fall man has been totally ruined. Totally ruined, not in the sense that every man and woman are as bad, as bad as they could possibly be, but totally ruined in the sense that every faculty in a human being, be it mental or emotional or soulish or spiritual or physical, no faculty within the human being has escaped the damage, some damage at least, done by sin, and that therefore man is dead in trespasses and in sins because of the fall. He is so dead, so to speak. Some have said that it would be useless to preach the gospel to him and call upon him to repent. You might as well preach the gospel to a dead log of a tree, which is dead and couldn't hear you preach anyway, to say. Uh, or to a corpse, which being so dead, it couldn't possibly repent or even hear what you say. That man is dead and therefore cannot begin the process that would lead to his salvation. That what has to happen is this, that God, having decided to save some, chosen them from before the foundation of the world, then at some stage in their lives, regenerates them. He doesn't ask their consent. He doesn't invite their cooperation or exercise of free will. He simply decides in his sovereignty to regenerate them and gives them new life. He, to use the old English, quickens them. They may not at the time realize they have been quickened, but presently, when they hear the gospel later today, tomorrow, next year, or whenever, they will respond to it because God has first quickened them. And responding, they will find that God has given them the faith. For in this understanding, man cannot decide to believe. God has to give them the faith to believe with, and they'll find that God, according to his electing purpose, has given them the faith to believe with, and so they repent and believe and are justified and forgiven and reconciled and, uh, now born again. First they were regenerate, eh, before they even believed, before they repented, God regenerated them. Uh, then eventually he, they have the faith given of God, they repent, they believe, and they are then born. The analogy is of a child, first of all conceived, alive in the womb, and then sometime later born. Thus they conceive of the process by which God saves those whom he has elected to save. Their answer to the question of why are so many people not saved then, is ultimately this, that God decided of his sovereign will to pass them by. They were sinners, like we all are. Being sinners, they deserve the penalty of sin. They have no grounds of complaint, therefore, if God consigns them ultimately to perdition. They are sinners, and they deserve it. Because they deserve position to perdition, they have no claim on mercy. By definition, no one has a claim on mercy, else it wouldn't be mercy. Mercy must be God acting in his sovereign, uh, grace and free will, deciding to have mercy. You cannot say to God, I deserve mercy. How could you if you were a sinner, do you? So these people, they are sinners like the rest of us. They deserve eternal perdition. They're not saved because God decided not to save them, decided to pass them by in his sovereignty. He therefore did not, uh, regenerate them, did not quicken them, did not give them the faith to believe, left them where he found them, dead in sins, and ultimately they will perish. And all this on the ground solely not of their works or deserts, but of God's sovereign choice made before the foundation of the world. Now, that is a view sincerely held, and a- and as I say, by mighty theologians and very godly men and women in the course of the ages. As you will see as I proceed, I myself do not hold that view. But this afternoon, I'm not going to try to prove what I believe to you. As a brother in Christ, I'll simply put before you this afternoon some scriptures that I find important and helpful, and may I say necessary for us to consider in the context of this great matter, and offer it to you as my contribution to your, uh, thinking about these things. Eh, uh, I trust that you have the brotherly and sisterly grace to take what I say in the spirit in which it is said, that together we might make progress in the understanding of God and his will. And if in anything I or you need to be adjusted in our thinking, God give us the grace to be humble enough to adjust our thinking. I want, first of all, to take then the question of God's sovereignty in relation to his justice. There is a slogan constantly, or very frequently repeated, let God be God. Who are you to reply against God? It is an excellent slogan, let God be God. But when we have said that, we must ask ourselves, um, well, let God be what God likes, but what does he like? God is sovereign and can do as he pleases, but what does he please to do? God is all powerful, but is not simply all powerful. God is love. Scripture indeed will never say God is power. It will say God is love. And in his sovereignty, it seems to me, scripture makes very clear that God in his sovereignty will never do anything that goes against his justice. God will always be just. And while God is sovereign, God will never do anything that goes against his love. That, I would suggest, is fundamental to our thinking. Let God be God, but let God be the God that has revealed himself. And one of the tests by which we may judge whether our idea of God is right is our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing in God, no attitude or action of God that is different from what was exposed and revealed through Jesus Christ, our Lord. If Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they would not come to him, you may be sure that he was then and in that very moment expressing the heart of God to those who refused to be saved. So I ask you to think in the first place of the justice of God's judgments. Don't look at the sheets now, but you will find, uh, they will list for you some of these questions, the justice of God's judgments as they are discussed with us in Holy Scripture. First, you may think of the final judgment, the great white throne, described for us in the book of the Revelation, chapter twenty, verses eleven to fifteen. And there we are told that when the dead stand before God, they are judged according to their works, out of the books that are the record of those works. They are judged according to their works. Judged because the amount of the sentence, the severity of the sentence will vary. Our Lord himself, who is going to be the judge, informed us when he was here on earth that they who did not know their Lord's will and in their ignorance contravened it will be beaten with few stripes. Those who knew his will and in spite of knowing contravened it will be beaten with many stripes. He is also on record of saying it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than from cer- than for certain cities in Palestine. You say, how could he say that? How does he know? Well, because he's going to be the judge. The Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son, and he solemnly affirms that it shall be more tolerable for s- for some than for others. The dead will be judged according to their works that are written in the book. But if you ask what will decide whether any person is dismissed to the lake of fire, what is it that decides that? Is it their works that decide it? Is it so, does scripture say it, that if any person's works were found to be enormously wicked, they are cast into the lake of fire. But if a person comes and her works were bad, but they weren't all that bad, you know, just a little bit bad, she was admitted to God's heavenly eternity. No, it doesn't say that at all, doesn't begin to say it, but it wouldn't be true. The thing that decides whether anybody is or is not cast into the lake of fire is this, if any man's, if any person's name was not found written in the book of life. That is the determinant. And we may see at once how important that is, because we who believe in the blessed Lord Jesus, if we were judged in the absolute sense according to our works, our doom would be perdition likewise, wouldn't it? For all have sinned and do still come short of the glory of God. That will be true of you, sir, when you're ninety nine and three quarters, as it is true for you now when you're twenty five and a half. Will be still true then that you have sinned in the past and you still come short of God's glory. If eternity depended on your works, then all of our works, all of us would perish. It is not the works then that decide whether someone will or will not go to the lake of fire, will or will not go to heaven. It is whether their name is written in the Lamb's book of life. And I want to suggest to you here and now that the name is written in that book, not on the ground of works whatsoever, but on the ground of the sacrifice of Christ. If that be true, well, at least let me, uh, uh, uh, uh, make a, a principle of this. If unbelievers are to be condemned, not simply for their works, but because they did not believe. If that is going to be the charge, that they didn't and wouldn't believe, it must have been possible for them to believe if they had chosen to. Is it anywhere said that people will be condemned for not believing? Oh yes, it is indeed. John chapter three is a very important verse in this respect, isn't it? John chapter three. verses eighteen and nineteen. He that believeth on him, that is on the Son of God, is not judged. He that believeth has not been judged, he that believeth not hath been judged already. Why? Because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment. This is the whole point and fulcrum of the judgment. The judgment is this, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, for their deeds were evil. So now here is our Lord, and do remember he shall be the judge. He's saying that people will be condemned, not simply for their works, but because they would not believe. He that believeth not is condemned already. Why is he condemned? Because he has not believed. Now I want to say to you, suggest to you, that if God in his justice is going to condemn somebody to eternal perdition for not believing, then it must have been possible for that person to have believed, if he or she had chosen to. And I am not happy to leave that simply as a deduction I make. I want you to read, if you will, our Lord Jesus saying exactly the same thing, enunciating the same principle. So would you care to look at John chapter nine, verses thirty nine to forty one? John chapter nine verses thirty nine, forty, forty one. And Jesus said, for judgment came I into this world, that they which see not may see, and they which see may become blind. Those of the Pharisees which were with him heard these things and said unto him, Are we also blind? Jesus said unto them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say we see, therefore your sin remaineth. Now, what does that mean? At the beginning of this chapter, our Lord found a man who was physically blind. Son of Adam, of course, heir to all the disabilities that sin has introduced. The disciples said to the Lord, Lord, who did sin? This man or his parents, that he was born blind? Whose fault is it that he's blind? His fault or his parents' fault? And our Lord said, neither. Neither. It was not his fault that he was born blind. We have our Lord's own statement, therefore, that a man is not to be blamed for the physical condition in which he is born. That is a very important principle. But having given the man physical sight, our Lord turned it all as a parable of spiritual sight. Blindness. So when the Pharisees listened to his conversation, they saw the point at last, and in some sarcasm they said to him, oh, thank you very much. So we're blind, are we? Ah, you're saying that we Pharisees are spiritually blind. Oh, thank you very much, you young man from Nazareth. Yes, yes, yes. To whom our Lord replied, if you were really blind, you would not have sin. What did he mean? He doesn't mean that if they were spiritually blind, unable to see anything, they would be sinless. We are all sinners. The phrase to have sin in John's writings means to be guilty, to be blameworthy. And our Lord is making the point, if you were spiritually blind, such that you couldn't possibly see, if you hadn't the faculty of sight to see, you would not be held guilty for not seeing. That is an exceedingly important principle of God's righteousness and judgment. God will never condemn anybody for not seeing what they, by definition, couldn't see. This is not my deduction, my brethren. This is what the judge himself says. If you were blind, you would not have sin. You couldn't be blamed for not believing. Imagine, uh, someone coming before the great right throne, and he stands before the judge of all men, our blessed Lord, and is condemned to perdition. And the man says, am I allowed to ask a question? Yes. Why am I being condemned? And suppose the answer came, for not seeing the book in my hand. And the man said, what book? I can't see any book. And the Lord said, don't be silly, of course you can't. You're blind, aren't you? Of course you can't see the book. And the man says, well then, am I going to be condemned for not seeing what I couldn't see? Suppose the judge said yes. I think heaven itself would turn black. What a horrible injustice that would be. For c- to condemn a man for not seeing what he couldn't see. It will never happen. Our Lord is on record as saying it. If you were blind, you would have no sin. Ah, but now you Pharisees, said he, you claim to be able to see, don't you? That's another story altogether. You claim to see. You claim to see enough so that you can say that I'm an imposter and a cheat and a liar. All right, you claim to see. You take the responsibility upon yourselves. For that you will be condemned. And our Lord, to further that, says, but let us read the passage. This now is chapter fifteen, verses twenty two to twenty five. John twenty two twenty uh, uh, uh, John fifteen chap- verses twenty two. to twenty five. Here our Lord is talking to his disciples about the world that has rejected him and is about to reject him. Verse twenty two: If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me and my father. Now this has come to pass that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause. So now the, uh, the parallel, the opposite side of the coin is, is stated. No one will be condemned in the first place for not seeing what he didn't have the faculty of sight to see. But conversely, no one will ever be condemned for not seeing what wasn't there to be seen. If I had not come and spoken unto them these things that no other has spoken, if I had not come and done these miracles among them that none other had done, then they wouldn't have sinned. What does it mean? It means they wouldn't be held guilty for rejecting what they never saw nor heard. Suppose a man comes to the final judgment and is condemned, and asking why he is told by God, you're being condemned for not believing on Jesus. And the man said, oh yes, but who is Jesus? I'd never heard of him. And God says, of course you haven't, stupid man. You've never heard of him, I know that, but you're going to be condemned for not believing him anyway. No, no. Our Lord himself says it won't happen. And will ever be condemned for not accepting what they never saw and never heard. Let us therefore consider those who have heard. We'll leave that other almighty problem, those that have never heard of the Lord Jesus, for another occasion, if ever you should invite me on another occasion, which perhaps is doubtful. But, uh, uh, let's concentrate on those who have heard. Why are they condemned? Because they didn't believe. Could they have believed? Or was it so that they were so ruined by the fall that they had lost the power to believe, lost the power to repent, were dead in trespasses and in sins to such extent that they course of couldn't turn to God, and that if ever they were to be saved, God had to give them the faith to believe with. But God decided not to give them the faith, but just to let them pass by and perish. Is that the situation? I refer you to the chapter ten of the Epistle to the Romans. In the notes, I have tried to discuss with you, or at least call attention to certain things in the three chapters, Romans nine, ten, and eleven. But, um, today, in these closing moments, I wish to point out certain important things towards the end of chapter ten of the Epistle to the Romans. At the beginning of that chapter, uh, Paul is explaining how he desires that his brethren according to the flesh would be saved. And now he proceeds to tell us why they are not saved, to explain it. He has preached his heart. Still they are not saved. Is it because salvation is difficult? No, it isn't difficult at all. He says, the word is nigh thee, it's in thy mouth, it's in thy heart. You only have to close in on it and you'll be saved. It isn't difficult. Is it because, uh, we're different from other people? There is no difference, replies Paul, whether Jew or Greek, the same Lord over all, and he is Lord over all without exception. The same Lord over all is rich to all that call upon him. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So says Paul. That raises for him a question. And he says, Romans ten verse fourteen: how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? If salvation depends on calling on the name of the Lord, says verse thirteen, how shall people call on the name of the Lord in whom they have not believed? So that's a very good explanation. Why aren't they saved? Well, they haven't believed. Why haven't they believed? Well, they've never called on the name of the Lord, you'll say. Oh, because they haven't believed, they haven't called. Well, there's a previous difficulty. And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? If you're going to call on the name of the Lord, you have to believe in the Lord, yes? And how will you believe in the Lord if you haven't first heard of the Lord? So if you haven't heard, you won't believe. If you haven't believed, you won't call. Do you see the steps in the argument? Well, there's another difficulty. Uh, do you see? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Other difficulties. No preacher, no hearing. No hearing, no believing. No believing, no calling. No calling, no salvation. Having considered the difficulty, Paul now faces each one of them. Would any or all of these combined prove to be the reason why Israel are not saved. And he proceeds to answer them. How shall they preach unless they be sent? Yes. We'll see, if people are going to hear the word of God through a preacher, that preacher will have to be a God sent preacher, not some mere orator getting up and expounding his own philosophical views. If people are going to hear the Lord talking to them, hear him, then the preacher must be a God sent preacher. So now let's account, can we, for how why Israel are not saved? Perhaps the preachers haven't been sent. They have, says Paul. Oh, they have. Paul's one of them. How beautiful are the feet of them that bring the glad tidings of God, of good things. Uh, oh, but perhaps they didn't hear. But they did not all hearken. There's the trouble. To the glad tidings. For Isaiah saith, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. Now notice the question that follows. But I say, did they not hear? Did they not hear him? How shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? If you're going to believe in Christ, it's not enough to hear about him. You'll have to hear Christ himself talking to you through his word. Is the reason that these folks are not saved, is the reason this, that they never heard Christ? And so they never heard, they weren't saved. And some might be tempted to say, yes, that's the reason, you see, they were born dead in trespasses and in sins, dead, so dead they couldn't hear anything. The reason that they're not saved is that they never did hear, couldn't hear, and God didn't, uh, open their ears so they could hear. But if we answered that, we should be wrong, wouldn't we? Look what Paul says. I say, it's not so, is it? That's the way he phrases his question in Greek. It's not so, is it, that they did not hear? No, it isn't, says the Greek. They did hear. Yea, verily their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. They did hear. And who are these that heard? Nice, bright believers. No, these are the people that have finally rejected Christ, but they heard him. It would be false to say that the unregenerate are so dead in sins they can't possibly hear, and that's why they're not saved. These were unregenerate men. They refused the gospel. It wasn't because they hadn't heard Christ. Did they not hear? They heard. Oh. But then I say, was it that Israel didn't know? Again, the Greek question is phrased so as to demand the answer no. It is not so, is it, that Israel didn't know? Or if it could be argued that they didn't know the gospel, that could account for their not being saved. Is that the reason why they weren't saved, that they didn't know? No, it isn't, says Paul. They did know. Unregenerate men, dead in trespasses and in sins, they heard nonetheless, and they knew. Where people are in ignorance, there is hope for mercy. Paul tells us that before his conversion he was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, but he obtained mercy because what he did, he did in unbelief. There was mercy, therefore. He obtained mercy because in his earlier days he was acting in unbelief, but there came a day when he was illumined, when he heard the voice of the Savior. Then Paul had to choose. Would he believe or wouldn't he? And these men had heard. Paul insists on it. They had seen. They rejected it. That's why they're not saved. And to bring the argument to its great height of conclusion, let's ask, is it that God had from all eternity chosen to pass them by? Because though he wishes that all men be saved, that is to be understood in the sense that he wishes all kinds of people, Irish, Eskimos, Americans, black, white, yellow, and green, and even English. And he would have all kinds and types of men to be saved, all without distinction, but not all without exception. He doesn't actually want, desire that all men, every particular person never did. And therefore he chose to elect s- some, to give them faith, so that they should then hear the gospel, repent and believe and be saved. He decided to pass others by, because he never did intend them to be saved. Is that true? That it was his sovereign choice alone that decided it, and we must let God be God and leave it there. But my dear brothers and sisters, I find it impossible to believe it to be true. For listen to what Paul now says. No, it's not Paul, it's Isaiah. No, it's not Isaiah. It is Almighty Sovereign God himself speaking through Isaiah and speaking to the nation of Israel. These men and women, you will say they're not elect, will you? Perhaps so, but they have rejected the Savior. They are still rejecting him. And the attitude of the God of heaven towards them is what? All day long, he says, I stretched out my hands. Oh, what a majesty. Just you picture it if you can. Almighty God, why does he have to get down on his knee and stretch out his hand to guilty sinners. Why doesn't he stay seated on his throne and act the sovereign potentate that he is? Ah, but yes, he is the sovereign and only potentate, king of kings and lord of lords, but for man's salvation he came down from heaven in the person of Jesus Christ and stretched out his hands. The gesture of that of a parent calling a little child, come, come, come. God stretching out his hand. He never stretched them further when his own, than when his own dear son died in agony on Calvary, God stretching out his hand. Did he want them to come? You say, but they can't come unless God gives them the faith to come with. And he's decided not to give them the faith. So they can't come. What? And he stands there pretending he wants them to come, making it look as if he wants them to come, stretching out his hands and pleading with them to come. And all the time doesn't want them to. There is only one way out of that predicament, known to me. It is the explanation that would go like this: God has two sets of counsel. He has his public counsels by which he declares he would have all men to be saved. He has his secret counsels, according to which he's decided to say s- to save some and deliberately bypass others and leave them to perish. You will forgive me for speaking in this matter with some warmth. I do not mean my warmth to decide the issue. But in this great issue of the sovereignty of God and how it relates to humankind and ultimately to our salvation, I suggest to you that we must pause long and think hard, because in deciding this question, we are talking about ultimately about the character of God. Let God be God. Yes, God is sovereign and will do as he likes, but God will only do as he likes, and what God likes is consistent with perfect justice and perfect love. How shall I be safely guided if I may only take one signpost in this direction? Well, then I would say, for my choice, I think to myself of the blessed Lord Jesus standing outside Jerusalem, breaking his heart. How often, says he, I would. Was that sincere? And why were these those tears? Well, precisely because the people wouldn't come. I would have gathered your children. You wouldn't. I find it impossible to add the explanation that one of the reasons why he was weeping was this, that he would have gathered them, but God hadn't elected them to be gathered. And therefore they couldn't come. And he was weeping because God hadn't elected them. Jesus Christ is God. And is God incarnate. In saying, I would have saved you, the fault is that you wouldn't be saved. You could have been saved, but you refused. Jesus Christ is telling out unerringly, and without any hidden reservations, what is the heart and mind of the sovereign God. Some are brief, some are lengthy. They've been given in an order, and I'm quite sure we'll be able to get through them, uh, fairly well. And this one is a short one. How do you love somebody you can't see? How do you love somebody you can't see? That is a real problem, and there are two slightly different answers given to it in scripture. In one John chapter five, the holy apostle makes the point, if a man say I love God but doesn't love his brother, well, the man is talking empty air. For if he loves not his brother, whom he can see, how can he love God, whom he hasn't seen? The logic behind it, of course, is simply this, that everyone that is born of God has the life of God within him and her. Now, Christians, I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anybody else, but Christians are a funny lot. You will say. Ha, all full of angles and difficulties and what have you. Loving them is a sign that you've been passed from death to life and you've been born of God, actually. By this we know we, uh, uh, uh, uh, are of God, that we're born of God, that we love the children of God. We love the brethren, you'll see. And the logic is simply, if you love him that begets, you love him also that is begotten of that father. So, because we are brothers and sisters in the same family, then there's something about God in our brothers and sisters. If we don't love them for that, then our claim to love God, whom we haven't seen, is airy fairy talk. On the other side, of course, it is the miracle of God's grace in salvation that we love the Savior without having seen him. Remember our Lord to Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, yet have believed. Physical sight is not the only kind of sight there is. There is spiritual sight. And if you ask, how is it that, as Peter puts it, believers are prepared to endure persecution, having not seen the Savior, they, they believe, and still not seeing him, they love him. How can that be? Though they've never seen him. The answer is that by God's Holy Spirit, we have seen the Lord, not with physical sight, but with a spiritual eye of faith. It is a miracle, of course, but it is a genuine thing. And if you say, but how can you love somebody that you haven't seen? Well, meet, uh, ask the next hundred believers you come across. Inquire to their attitudes, and you will find them actually saying, it's a mystery to atheists, that they love the Lord Jesus, and many of them are prepared to prove it by their lives. How do they do it? Well, the answer to that is the miracle of the new birth. If you had to pick one basic Christian truth to emphasize in today's society, what would it be? And how would you suggest a Christian should convey it to the non-Christian community? That's a difficult question to answer in one word, in the phrase it's put. If I had to, uh, give one truth, you'll see, uh, what should I say? Because if we observe the way the Lord Jesus approached people, he, uh, uh, arranged his approach and his talk to them in different ways, according to their need. To the learned rabbi, he talked about the new birth. To the woman at the well, he talked about the Holy Spirit and the satisfaction, the great thirst-quenching water of salvation. So our Lord talked to different people in different ways. If I were in Russia, I would say the first great thing to talk about is God, but then I would want hastily to explain what I meant by God, because their idea of God is the God represented by the superstitions of the unreformed medieval church, with all its accumulated riches and very often its despising of the poor, with its denial of a possibility of being sure of salvation and all those kinds of things, you'll see. So if I said to the atheist, uh, uh, started with God, I would very soon want to come on and explain, uh, something of what God is as revealed in Jesus Christ, you'll see. In our modern world, yes, you would want to start with God and perhaps God as creator. Because so many in our schools, I cannot say for down here, but in Britain and in America, so many children at school have been taught that science has made it impossible to believe in God. In consequence, they don't come anywhere near you. And for heathen of that sort, you have to start where Romans one starts and talk about the evidence for the Creator. It is massive, of course. And some need to be taught about God's law and his holiness. What's the good of telling people that they need to be forgiven of their sins when they don't understand what sin is? The only sin they know of is some president of the United States on his fourth, fifteenth, or twenty-first woman. So they need to be taught about God and his holiness that they might see the need of salvation. If you want to sum it up in a word, well, I would want to, I think, God, and then God revealed in Christ. Thank you, David. This, this is a short one. I don't know exactly where it's coming from, but it says this: Were there volcanoes in the Garden of Eden? It's not signed. As far as I know, they weren't, and I should have thought it would quite unlikely, considering the part of the world where Eden was. Don't think there are altogether many mountains in the immediate vicinity. If there were mountains in the early Earth, were there volcanoes? I don't see why not. You'll say that the Genesis says that when God saw what he'd made, he saw that everything was good. Well, yes, everything was good. I'm not sure everything was safe. Are you? We need the underground fires underneath the crust of our Earth. Uh, it it's a part of the uh machinery for our atmosphere and our heating and what have you. We're supplied with the sun up in the sky. That isn't safe, I might tell you. God organized our world just precisely at the right point, not too near, not too far, and a thousand and one other things critically organized. We need the sun up in the sky. We should freeze to death. We couldn't live without it. The sun isn't safe. And now the Australians will tell you, you better wear a hat when you go outside, or you may get cancer from, from the light. So the God Almighty planted a garden in Eden that shows you that the rest of the world wasn't garden. His commission to man was to go forth and to, uh, uh, rule and and have dominion. Marvelous, exciting scheme. If man had done it in his unfallen state as a child with a father, it would have been delightful. God surely would have shielded him from dangers. Man sinned. That has altered enormously man's relationship with creation. You'll see. But, um, whether there were volcanoes around the world in those parts that Adam wasn't going to see for centuries, I wouldn't be sure. All I would say is that there was electricity, and there were, uh, there could have been laser beams, and there were atoms, uh, all sorts of things that were potentially dangerous, but God would have given man, as he has now indeed, the ability to harness them for man's use. Uh, this, uh, is headed an oft repeated question, and I feel David's ministry has, uh, in effect, uh, answered this, but again, it says, how do we reconcile man's ability to choose, bracket, which you have clearly explained, close the bracket, God's choice chosen in him before the foundation of the world? As to choice, it seems to me true to apply to our relationship with the Lord the situation that man and woman face in marriage. In my day, I was born somewhat after Queen Victoria died. It was a long time ago, but it wasn't thought right for the woman to make the proposal. The man had to choose, and he was the first one of the two to make his choice known. The fact that he ch- chose Joan Smith rather than Sheila Brown, did that mean that automatically Joan Smith had no choice because he chose her, she had no choice? No, certainly not. He chose her, she in response chose him, yes? Yes. The fact that God sovereignly chooses does not eliminate choice on our side. Secondly, what Ephesians chapter one says, and I say this with due deference to those that hold a different view, but I myself understand Ephesians one to be saying not that he chose us full stop, he chose us in Christ. God's scheme for producing children of God, which is what Ephesians is talking about. The scheme that he had in his heart before the world was, was to have children. How could he arrive at having children? The answer was, of course, one, he would have a human race that incidentally would need a universe to put them in and a planet to put them on. So those things had to be done. And then they would need to be educated by his law. But key to the riddle would be that his own dear son would become human. So human beings repenting of sin and putting their faith in him could be joined to the Savior and put in Christ. That's how sons are got at. You can't be a son of God without being in Christ. You don't first become a son and then are put in Christ. So how do you get into Christ? That's the point. You get into Christ when God through Christ offers you salvation. And you make your response. You have to choose life, as Joshua and Moses said to their people. It is God's election then that he would have sons chosen in Christ, was his choice, that there would be a multitude of human beings that had become children of God. How you get in Christ to start with, that is laid out in the rest of scripture. It is by hearing the word of God, hearing the Savior, responding in repentance and faith, and choosing him. This is said at session one. Colossians one and Hebrews one, as to upholding, etcetera, bring out very much the glory of the Son. Please help as to this. Thank you for the question. When I was thinking about it and making my notes and thought it right to quote those passages about creation, I was talking about God, and I quoted Colossians one and Hebrews one. And I thought to myself, somebody will say, but wait a minute, Mr. Preacher, you're misusing your text. The text is talking not about God, it's talking about Christ. Well, you're right, of course. But then I, I have to ask you, who was Christ? And, uh, this Christ through whom and by whom and for whom the worlds were made. Did he just begin to be when he was born in Bethlehem? Or was he the Word that was with God at the very beginning and was God? Well, of course, this Christ was the Word, and he was with God. He was there when creation was made. It was through him that creation was made. You say, but, ah, but the Bible says that God created. Well, was not the Word God? Says John one, The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Abraham believed God. Hey, tell me, in those days when Abraham believed God, did he know that God was a Trinity? Well, you said no evidence that he did. I see. Was he a Trinity? The God that Abraham believed in, was he a Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Well, of course he was. So I was talking shorthand, of course, but when I talked about God creating and then I quoted the passage in Colossians that talks about Christ, I did it because I'm a incurable Christian in that sense, and I believe that Christ is God, and he is the one through whom God created the universe. Yes, uh, the wonderful triune God. Wonderful to think about it. We can't understand it, we believe it, but that's what it is, and we trust him for it all. Now, this is a question which... there are several, so please listen carefully, please. God gave sinless Adam and Eve the ability to reject him. Does it therefore follow that sinful people, and it brackets those born after the fall, but everybody was sinful, of course, if they were born after the fall, have the ability to worship and obey God in a way that is acceptable to him. Man wills to do what his mind feelings directs. How can sinful man will to say, accept Christ when both his will and feelings have been so affected by the fall that sinful man does not, cannot understand spiritual things and does not seek after God. Will I leave this on the lectern for you, David? Well, these are, of course, very perceptive questions, eh, and, uh, they come, uh, from that understanding of the problem that is somewhat different from mine. I warned you about that at the beginning, to see. So this is asking in the first place, uh, say it is admitting in the first place, yes, God gave sinless Adam and Eve free will, the ability therefore to obey God or not to obey God, and the ability to choose which they would do. Since the fall, all have been ruined, yes. Sinful people, those born after the fall, have ha- ha- ha- have, um... Does it therefore follow that those born after the fall have the ability to worship and obey God in a way that is acceptable to him? Uh, do see. And, uh, in- if you put the question just like that, sinful people, no, haven't the ability to worship God in a way that is acceptable to him. You see. They are called upon to worship God. The eternal gospel mentioned in the Revelation fourteen is an appeal to all the inhabitants of earth to worship him that made heaven and earth. Worship in that sense means to bow down and acknowledge the superiority of the deity of God. There's many a man that does that who is not yet born again, who is not yet saved, but he acknowledges that there is a cre- creator, yes? But if you go further and say, have they the ability to worship God in a way that is acceptable to him? Our Lord told the woman at Samaria that, uh, uh, God is spirit, and they that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. In that sense, without the Holy Spirit, man is not able to worship God as God should be worshipped. But now what follows from that? Can a man, sinful though he is, or woman, born of Adam, be brought to worship God acceptably? Yes. How? Why, through the gospel. And how is, does God bring people to worship him? By revealing his son to them. When Peter came to see that Jesus was the son of God, our Lord replied, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father, which is in heaven. Yes, Peter, uh, God had revealed this to Peter. The question arises that when God reveals himself to someone, does that someone have any choice longer? Can they shut their eyes? Yes? If you're in the dark and I bring a light in, physically, you can choose whether you're going to look at it or shut your eyes. When God reveals his son, have people still the choice whether they will receive him or whether they will shut their eyes. That's the point of issue. When the Jews came to Christ and Christ said, look here, I've come down from heaven to do my Father's will, and uh, if you wish eternal life, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood. The Jews murmured, they said, it's absolute nonsense, this is. What does it? He know his father and his mother. How does he say I've come down from heaven? Our Lord's reply was, yes, gentlemen, it is difficult, isn't it? But then you can't come to me unless my Father draw you. You'll never understand it unless my Father explains it. But now the question is, does the Father draw everybody? Or only some? And the answer is given in the context. It is written, they shall all be taught of God. Yes, of course, God takes the initiative in salvation of everybody that is saved. It's his idea. We didn't think up salvation. It wasn't you, I think, that came to God one day and said, look here, we're a miserable round of sinners, God, but what I should suggest, God, if I may suggest something, is that you should consider having mercy on us, and uh, perhaps would you even conce- uh, uh, consider so far as sending your son into the world to die for us? It wasn't you, was it, that thought it up or suggested it? No, of course not. God is. He makes the initiative. Who hath known the mind of the Lord or first instructed him that it should be recompensed to him? No, God initiates salvation, and the Father sent the Son, and the Father draws people to the Son. But that doesn't mean that when God draws, people are- have no choice. They can refuse. We saw it said at the end of chapter ten of Romans. The question goes on to say, man wills to do what his mind and or feeling directs. How can sinful man will to s- will to say, accept Christ when both his will and feelings have been so affected by the fall that sinful man does not, cannot understand spiritual things and does not seek to ask after God, uh, seek after God. Problem. It is the fact that we have all been ruined by the fall. It is the fact that we are dead in trespasses and in sin. But let me start with that simple analogy that our Lord himself used in the parable of the prodigal son. According to the prodigal's father, when the prodigal was away in the far country, he was dead. The father said to the elder brother, this thy brother, this my son, was dead. Does that mean that when the prodigal was down in the far country, he couldn't think anything about his father at all? Well, no, he did think, didn't he? Or if you take, uh, the epistle to the Ephesians chapter two, we were dead in trespasses and in sins. Did that mean that we, we were literally dead and couldn't see the difference between right and wrong? No, it doesn't mean anything of the sort. We walked. Yes, we were in some sense alive, dead to God maybe. Thirdly, John chapter seven. our Lord is talking to the Jews in the temple. They are unregenerate, they're about to stone him. Now he says, gentlemen, you want to know about my teaching, and you say, how does this man have this teaching? I tell you what, gentlemen, he said, look, um, and then he starts to argue with them about his teaching. Use your critical judgment on my teaching, says he. You're about to murder me because I healed a man on the Sabbath day, gentlemen. But think for a moment. Moses commanded that a boy being born such that on the eighth day he should be circumcised. If that eighth day was a Sabbath, what did Moses say? Well, Moses said, well, if the eighth day is a Sabbath, then the law of circumcision comes before the law of Sabbath, that's why. And to make a man complete in the Jewish law, then he must be free to be circumcised on the Sabbath. Law of circumcision takes precedence over law of Sabbath. And says Christ to these men, is that what Moses said? I appeal to you to judge righteous judgment. You say, who is, who is Christ talking to? A hall full of redeemed believers? No, no, indeed, he's talking to a lot of unregenerate Jews, calling on them to use their moral judgment and assess the quality of his teaching. For if I, if you, uh, uh, if Moses was right to prescribe circumcision on the Sabbath, will you accuse me of sinning that I have made a complete man whole on the Sabbath? So here is Christ urging unregenerate men to use their moral judgment on his teaching. And then in chapter eight of John, our Lord does the other thing. He shines the light not on himself and his teaching, but on those men. Could they see they were sinners? Could they see the light? Well, they could certainly, and turned out and ran off. To see it all right. It's quite false to think that the unregenerate man cannot see the difference between right and wrong. Each other one knows he's a sinner. And when a man comes next to Christ, the man becomes conscious of his sin. It is a false, it is pushing the metaphor too far to say because people are dead in trespasses and in sins, they can't come into any right moral judgment. They can. If you doubt that, watch the next man who gets out of a Rolls-Royce outside your local bank, and when he's, uh, walking inside, go into the Rolls-Royce and steal it and see whether he's got any moral judgment. Yes, men and women have moral judgment. To its moral judgment, the blessed Lord appeals and shows the light o- of his truth into their moral judgment and asks them to use their moral judgment. To see that he is the Son of God, that's an- that's another thing. For that, they will need their eyes opened. This is a spiritual thing. Christ is willing to open their eyes. How did he do it for the blind man? Did he say, eyes open, and the eyes were open at once? No. He made clay and put it on the man's eyes, and the man still couldn't see. Did the man have to do a lot of things before he could see? Yes, he did. Go down to the pool of Siloam and wash. And you can imagine the man saying to himself, well, what? I don't know. I mean, this sounds a bit crazy to me. What? His mate Clay put it on my eyes, and I've got to find my way groping down the city to the pool as I learn. I mean, this sounds crazy to me. Shall I do it? Shall I not do it? What's the point of doing it? So he had to make up his mind about Christ before he even set out for the pool, didn't he? Had he any evidence on which to make up his mind? Well, yes, he could ask himself, is this Jesus an absolute? Is he a charlatan? Is he a fool? He'd heard of what Jesus could do for other people. There was evidence galore upon which he could come to the tentative conclusion. This is worth making the experiment to do what Jesus says and see whether it works. And he made the experiment and came seeing. It is not so that we have to sit there passively and can't do anything if we would be saved. You'll see. It is the fact that we are ruined by the fall. But we can, uh, still use our moral judgment. We can allow Christ to shine in our hearts. And when he shines, then instead of running away, we must make up our minds that we're going to stay in the light. And if we do it, like the woman taken in adultery, he will show us the way of forgiveness and reconciliation. Now, our time has just gone. There are two questions. I'm going to read them both out together. I'm going to ask David, if he can, to give a short answer to each, and, uh, then we will draw our time to a close. Question one: How do you think God will react to the possibility of human cloning, and will he allow man to design another human creature? Question two: In summing up pain, you came to the place where you said, this is what I think. What does God's word say? It is a difficult thing for some people to answer questions in a few words. Will God allow cloning? I better not say this is what I think, had I? But it seems to me that the Revelation thirteen says that he has power to give life to the beast, to the image, sorry, of the beast. Who knows what God will allow people to do. When people clone, of course they are not creating the genes. Man is not creating life, is he? He has to start with genes already made and cells that are already made. He's only manipulating life. He's not creating it. Will God allow him? Some people have said that, uh, God alone can create life. That is perfectly true. But to engineer life, it is evident that man has some part therein, is it not? He can cure some diseases by engineering the genes, and so forth and so on. Uh, people can, uh, take drugs in such fashion as they affect the mental health of those that are in the womb. That's a way of altering the chemical compositions of the body with dire results, and God allows some people to do it, doesn't he? So, I think I turn the question back on you. I would be very interested to hear what scriptures you would advance in answer to that question. It is perfectly fair to say that when I was talking about pain, I concluded by saying, this is what I think. And you are right to suggest that I would have done better to say, what does God's word say? As my excuse, I said, this is what I think, because when it comes to pain, it's easy for a preacher to stand and preach theory. And sometimes to do it when he himself has never experienced much pain. And sometimes mere theory to people that are in pain is difficult to take. So I said, this is what I think, because what little pain I have known, these things have been a great help to me. I didn't get time to say what, time to say what I'd love to say, and that is, having started on this scheme of having us eventually as sons of God, conformed to the image of his son, God knew in advance the pain it would be involved for us. He knew far more the pain that would be involved for him. He's not a God that sits on his throne and dishes out mere theory or mere commands. For the sake of this great problem, of this great purpose, when we had gone astray and rebelled and gone our own way, to bring us back and bring that problem to, that purpose to its fulfillment, God himself has suffered. More than any one of us or all of us put together will ever suffer. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, and in bringing many sons to glory, it behoved him, it was the decent thing to do for God to do it, to give us a captain of salvation who himself was made perfect through suffering. So we dare to trust not just the preacher who relates what has been a help to him, I did that, but we look to Christ, who himself is our fire leader, and see how he endured the sufferings for our sake.