Father, we say amen to these prayers. We do offer praise to you for your goodness, for your guidance, Lord. Lord, we ask you to continue to teach us about the effects of sin on our lives and the lives of the unsaved and then teach us about your beloved son. May we revere Christ and worship him as we should instruct us about him even tonight, we pray, and we do come to you, Father, through your Son. The Lord Jesus, our Savior, amen. Please indicate your percentage of reading done. There are quizzes. It should be some in the back on each side. If not, pick one up on the break on due next time on those pages of the graph. The quiz will only be on understanding Jesus pages 15 to 119, not on anything else, not on any other readings, not on the syllabus, just on those pages. And I try to give you a little advanced notice. It is entirely true and false. Oh, we're talking around 18 questions. Of course, there'll be no tricky ones in there.
Our task tonight is to spend, oh, maybe 40 minutes on to the first break on the ability, inability discussion. And then we really need to get on with the doctrine of Christ after our break. I'm on page 47. We're thinking about the effects of the fall to put things in a bigger view as a matter of fact, look at the bottom of 53. Original sin brings results in terms of guilt and pollution. You know what those terms mean by now. Page 53 at the bottom. Under the moral category of pollution, we have both the gravity and our topic for tonight, inability. Top of 47. Paul is the theologian of original sin. There's no debate on that. It is worthwhile to investigate Paul's writings to see what he says. An unsafe person is able to do to rescue him or herself from their plight. I'd like to focus our attention on three important questions. Understanding we can ask questions of the Bible that it does not answer. So the fact that we make up questions doesn't mean that they're necessarily, you know, going to be answered. But let's take a stab at it. One, how does Paul describe the will of an unsafe person? Is his will morally free or morally bound? Or can't we decide? Two, what can an unsafe person do to be saved? Specifically, is an unsafe person able to believe in Christ for salvation? Three, is either the Armenian or Calvinist view of prevenient grace, correct? Or is there another view that is correct? You understand? Last time we talked about the Armenian view. We gave credit to Wesley for teaching that prevenient grace, grace that precedes salvation is universal, nullifying the effects original sins specifically on man's will so that by virtue of this universal preceding grace, Armenians talk about gracious ability. There's a gracious ability to believe the gospel. No merit involved. There's a gracious ability. Or is the Augustinian Calvinist tradition correct, which understands prevenient grace as efficacious as effective and therefore as particular. Again, I acknowledge that the text may not answer these questions. First Corinthians 2, so I want to look at some texts and as we turn there, let me say, this discussion is not asking the question, do people in fact believe onto salvation? Of course they do. Sometimes it has been assumed that if you say that, you've already answered the question that they're able to believe and be saved, not necessarily so. The fact that they believe in our saved, nobody disputes as to how that comes about, that is a bone of contention. I'm going to assume you read 1 Corinthians 2 lately and I'm just going to read the last few verses. 1 Corinthians 2, 14, the man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. To the notes, Paul says that when he came to Corinth, his preaching centered on the crucifixion of Christ, he did not rely upon human wisdom or preaching ability alone when he preached the gospel to the Corinthians. When Paul preached to them, he did not trust in human wisdom or speaking ability. His confidence was in the power of the Holy Spirit to use the gospel and bring about results verses 1 through 5. In another sense, the gospel message is a message of wisdom. Mature believers recognize this, but the world does not. This is not worldly wisdom whose source is the mind of man. Rather, it's God's wisdom in a mystery verse 7. NIV says secret wisdom. New America's there does better God's wisdom in a mystery. Perhaps that word mystery should be reflected. It's a theme in Paul's sought. God planned to give the wisdom of the gospel to believers before creation. The final goal of God's wisdom in the gospel is the glorification of the saints. Verse 7. Skipping to parentheses, the first century worldly leaders did not understand the wisdom of God. They demonstrated this par excellence when they murdered the son of God. God was not defeated however by the death of his son. God has now revealed the wonderful things which he has prepared for his people, things which were made known not by any human being figuring them out, but by revelation from God. They're beyond human ability to figure out. I think of Jesus words in John 3, to Nicodemus, one of the leaders of Israel and a prominent teacher. If I have spoken to you of earthly things and you don't believe, how will you understand if I teach you about heavenly things? The earthly thing he was talking about was regeneration by the Holy Spirit. How is that earthly? It's not earthly in its source, but it's earthly in its sphere. It takes place on earth. But if Jesus meaning is, if he talked straight forwardly about what happens in heaven, there's no way they could understand and we could understand. But here God reveals that there are great blessings in store for the people of God. Nowhere does the Bible give us the furniture of heaven in any detail, but it tells us all that we need to know. It is the Holy Spirit who has access to the secrets of God. There's a parallel in the human sphere where only an individual knows her deepest thoughts. In the same way only God's spirit knows the thoughts of God. The apostles have not received the spirit of the world system that is at enmity with God from which they would learn the world's wisdom. They have received the spirit from God from which they learn the wisdom of God. In turn, the apostles communicate to their hears this wisdom from God. They preach the gospel, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the spirit. In so doing, they express spiritual truths in spiritual words. It could possibly be translated, they express spiritual truths to spiritual people. Paul contrasts, this is the most important point for our purposes now by number 47. Paul contrasts the psookie cost as the word he uses, person, the unspiritual person with the pneumatic cost, the spiritual one. In context, these two words must mean lacking the spirit of God and hence unsaved and having the spirit of God and hence saved respectively. So the NIV translates, the psookie cost man, the solish or natural man as the man without the spirit. It expresses the sense very well. The unspiritual man, top of 48, does not accept the things of the spirit of God. The implication is because he does not have the spirit of God. By the way, this does not accept, I try not to talk too much, Greek and theology class, but I can't help it at this point. It's a nomic present. It's an interpretation, but I think it's a legitimate. I think it's a right interpretation. I don't think it would be debated. Anomic present. There are different kinds of present senses in Greek. If you're describing your male person's activity, can I call them male man? Is that okay tonight? We haven't have a male man. If you describe your male man's activity and you say you have a little child at home and mother says, you know, you're waiting for an important letter, is the male man coming in a little child? The male man's coming down the street. That would be a progressive idea in Greek. It means he's actually doing it, a progressive present, okay? This is not that. The understanding that I have of this particular usage doesn't say that it's happening right now in somebody's life. If you say, when is the male man coming? He comes around three o'clock. That's the sense. It expresses the regular state of affairs. That is, it is the regular state of affairs, the ordinary situation, for unsafe people to not accept the things that the spirit of God. It's not saying this particular unsafe person right now is rejecting the gospel. Now it's making a general statement about the way things work. So for example, light shines and birds, most of them anyway, fly okay? And horses run and unsafe people do not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, which things have to be defined in this context. In fact, the wisdom from God is foolishness to an unsafe person since he evaluates from the perspective of the world's wisdom is the sense. The man or woman without the spirit cannot understand the things that come from the spirit because those things are spiritually understood. Since he lacks the spirit, he lacks spiritual discernment seems to be Paul's thought. In contrast, the person with the spirit, the spiritual person exercise discernment about all spiritual things. Be careful about verse 15, doesn't mean you don't have to study for your geography test because you're a Christian. You can prove real quickly that that's not what it means when you get an F in your theology, in your not theology, perish the thought in your geography test by not studying. Although if you don't study theology, you're allowed to get a bad grade too. Please don't put the Lord to the test on that one. It means, of course, all spiritual things. He is not subject to the evaluation of unsaved men in the spiritual sphere, again as the context, however, since he has access to and is subject to the revealed mind of God in Christ. I'm trying to set verses 14 to 16 in the context, especially 14. Let's look at 14 in more detail. What are the things of the spirit of God referred to in verse 14? It seems to me, we can just go backwards through the whole context and we have them referred to repeatedly. They are the spiritual things expressed in spiritual words, verse 13. They are what God has freely given, verse 12, the thoughts of God, deep things of God, what God has revealed by his spirit, verse 10, their secret wisdom, their message of wisdom, Paul's message, the message about Jesus Christ and him crucified and the testimony of God. Paul's been talking about the same idea all the way through the chapter. In other words, the things of the spirit are the revelation given by God to the apostles. That revelation centered on the saving work of Christ. It included other topics as well. For example, what God has prepared for those who love him, verse 9, I thus have defined the things of the spirit of God from the context as the revelation God gave to the apostles that they in turn preached. That is the gospel of Christ understood in its broadest sense. The Holy Spirit plays two important roles in this passage. We must interpret verse 14 within the context of the spirits to works. First of all, he reveals the things of God to the apostles. Be careful, verses 10 to 13, don't teach that the Holy Spirit is going to give us direct revelation. They speak of the apostles and there's a special ministry in the first century as authorized representatives of Christ, eyewitnesses and ear witnesses of the risen Christ who are commissioned by him to preach the gospel. They got direct revelation from God and unlike preachers today, they preached the direct revelation from God, the very word of God equal to the word of God in Scripture. In fact, some of their preaching was written down as they directed messages in writing to different churches and so forth. So number one, the spirit reveals the things of God to the apostles as argued above the things of the Spirit of God is a reference to the apostolic preaching of the gospel which had its origin in the spirit's revelation. Second, the spirit does a second work. He enables people to understand the apostolic message. So he's on the broadcast side and the reception side both. He gives the message in the first place. He brings the message home. First Corinthians 2, 1415 includes a second aspect of the spirit's work too. The spirit works dynamically to enable sinners to apprehend the truth of God. We might label the two aspects of the spirit's work revelation and illumination even saving illumination seems to be in view. Comments or questions up to this point? Yes sir. Comment is made that the student who raised this comment acknowledges revelation has ceased and yet wants to point to or asks questions about or understand better the spirit's work in believers lives. Doesn't the spirit teach us and guide us and lead us and even give us insights and so forth? Yes. The important distinction is the one you've made that those insights and that guidance and so forth and the prompting and leading in the spirit is not revelation on a par with God's word. I was gratified to see in those meetings in the past decade of the International Congress on Biblical Inherency, deliberately believers from many different perspectives gathered including charismatic Christian scholars. They were unanimous in emphasizing that point. That the canon of scripture is closed, that any revelatory claims today must be evaluated under the authority of God's word. Some of us have minimized the spirit's role in guidance and so forth. The Bible here and in John 14 and 16 in my estimation speaks of the apostles specifically. First John 2 however speaks of the spirit plainly teaching believers who are not apostles so that concept is indeed biblical. Does he not teach the believers chiefly the apostles in scripture in a revelation? Yes. But the spirit does work in our lives and lead and guide and so forth. I think where you drew the line was the right place to draw it. That's a question of authority and that is invested in God's written truth. Theological conclusions from this passage. What does 1 Corinthians 214 teach concerning the unsaved person's ability to take in to believe the apostolic message? Number one, the unsaved person does not accept it. Two, it is foolishness to him. Number three, he or she cannot understand it. This passage does not account for the inability of the unsaved to respond to the gospel by appealing to their condition of spiritual death as does Ephesians 2. Nor does it ascribe the rejection of the gospel to Satan's working as does 2 Corinthians 4. A passage that gives us the creeps. Amazingly, in fact, so does Ephesians 2. It talks about Satan working in unsaved people. Amazingly, this passage merely labels the unsaved natural or unspiritual. By the way, the standard Greek dictionary, the New Testament defines this word natural as lacking the spirit. Just the way the NIV has translated it. And in so doing says that they do not indeed cannot believe because they do not have the spirit of God. Apart from the spirit, one is locked up to the wisdom of this evil world. From the standpoint of the world's wisdom, the gospel is foolishness. It's so called wisdom, Paul probably speaks with sarcasm here. It is only the spirit who gave the gospel who can cause sinners to savingly apprehend it. I'm assuming the next paragraph, it gives credit to my own systematic teacher telling us that we should be cautious. And if I'm trying at this point to build up a systematic theology concerning ability, slash inability, then I'm appealing to particular passages and texts that is doing inductive study. I have to be open to people pointing to other texts and saying, what about this passage? What about that passage? Okay, so by the nature of it, it's incomplete. The study itself, but it's an attempt to make a beginning. The issue of the freedom bondage of the will is not specifically addressed by our passage. I'm addressing the three questions from a couple pages back. Some type of bondage of the will is implied however it seems to me. You think critically through my notes, please, for the unsaved person does not accept and cannot understand spiritual things. They are foolishness to him. Inasmuch as he is limited to worldly wisdom on his own. His will, he does not receive and his mind cannot understand, are bound by sin. Our passage seems to answer the second question by saying that an unsaved person cannot do anything to be saved. He cannot understand the gospel. It's part of the normal state of affairs that the unspiritual do not accept spiritual things. The passage would seem to attribute the ability to believe to the work of the Spirit. And when we see a spiritual interest in someone therefore, we ought to be encouraged that the Lord is working. It may not be an absolute guarantee that the person is going to be saved, but any interest in spiritual matters, I would attribute to the Holy Spirit working in somebody's life. Life, and I would encourage me. Our passage does not directly address the question about the nature of that prevenient grace. The best we can do is to test the Armenian and Calvinist models. This passage does not teach a universal work of the Spirit that enables all people to be saved. I have to be open to somebody claiming that other passages do do that, okay, and I am. The passage rather distinguishes between a spiritual and unspiritual person on the basis of the possession or lack of possession of the Spirit. The Spirit's saving work is not universal here. It is the Spirit who makes the difference between those who understand spiritual truth and those who do not. The passage does not attribute possession of the Spirit to faith or lack a possession of the Spirit to unbelief. It attributes faith and unbelief to the presence or absence of the Spirit. Thus, on the basis of this passage, I would incline toward the Calvinist view of prevenient grace. In some, unsaid people on their own do not accept the gospel. It is foolishness to them. They cannot understand it. Oh, they could be professors of theology or of religion or of Bible and understand it on a certain level. This biblical concept of understanding here is equivalent to believing. There have been professors of New Testament who memorized the Greek New Testament and who could very much tell you what the gospel is according to Paul, okay, but who did not themselves believe it. So, I want to be very clear as to what I mean by understanding. Comments or questions. Is this helpful? Does it get you thinking? You say, one of the applications for evangelism. We dare not try to manipulate anybody into the kingdom of God. We can't do that. We want to love people. We want to follow Jesus example and be friends of sinners. We want to pray for people since it's only the Holy Spirit who can convert them anyway. We don't want to try to manipulate people or get them in an emotional state where they're going to say yes. Otherwise, they wouldn't have. No, we don't need to do those things. As a matter of fact, it's wrong because we might end up giving them false assurance or causing them to think they're saved when they're not because they conform to our pressure. No pressure. We share the gospel. We love. We pray. We seek for people to make professions of faith. Then we feed faith. Many a person has really been saved in discipleship. Oh, I didn't understand the cross. And you're thinking, they understand the cross. Well, they really believe when they profess Christ a couple of weeks back. Doesn't matter. Go on in feed faith. By the time you're done your study, they'll be sure. And you'll be sure that they're sure. Praise the Lord. Always disciple. Always disciple. Otherwise, we do harm. We don't help people. Comment or question. Question is, did I say the spirit can bring about an interest in spiritual things in an unsafe person? I'm saying that. Yes, and I'm saying much more. But I am saying that indeed. And I'm also saying, I'm also saying then, conversely, when we see an interest, we ought to go with that as a place where we, to the best of our, you know, imperfect knowledge, would conclude the spirit is at work. That is, it's pretty hard to, although not impossible, to account for that interest. It could be a bad interest or from bad motivations or something. But a sincere interest in the things of the Lord, I would attribute to the spirits working. Doesn't mean everybody who has an interest get saved. But boy, we want to be working where the Holy Spirit is working. And that would be an exciting opportunity indeed. Time for one more passage. Second Corinthians four.
The context is Paul being criticized. Therefore, since through God's mercy, we have this ministry. We do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use deception. See, his enemies are saying these things and he's defensive. He's on the defensive. Nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every person's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Context. Paul has been speaking in the end of chapter three of the glory of the new covenant. The glory of the mosaic covenant fades away completely. Remember Moses' face coming down from the mountain just filled with glory. But Jews couldn't handle it. Vail your face Moses. We can't handle this. So there was glory, but compared to the glory of God in Christ and the gospel and the ministry of the new covenant, that glory was as no glory by comparison. The new dispensation brought by Jesus Christ is altogether glorious. Consequently, the ministry is a good passage for discouraged preachers. The ministry of the new covenant is glorious too. On bad days, don't look at your flock. My own pastor cracked me up when he said it. It took him a one year, less than one year in ministry to learn something he never had learned in seminary. And that is that sheep have teeth.
I thought that was good. On certain days you can't look at your flock or the encouragement you receive because some days you just don't get it. You just don't receive it. The people just assume that you know that they are greatly appreciative sometimes they don't say it, but you always can turn again to God's word and passages like this to lift you up. The ministry of the new covenant is glorious. Paul is a minister of the new covenant of the glorious Lord Jesus Christ. An exposition of these verses. The words therefore in verse 1 point back to the preceding discussion of the glory of new covenant ministry. The clause that follows does the same. Since we have this, he means in context, glorious new covenant ministry. It is only because of God's saving mercy that the apostles had their ministries. Paul says just as we received mercy, that really makes a difference too in the way one ministers. If one never forgets that your situation as a servant of God is because of God's mercy, then we ought to be merciful to others. An unmerciful Christian is a contradiction in terms. Think of the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew's gospel. It's a contradiction in terms. Christians are experts in mercy because they're very being Christians themselves as a result of God's mercy. We have drunk deeply from the fountain of God's mercy. How can we be less than merciful to others? Maybe never be in that place of the guy who had been forgiven all that and shook down his fellow, who owed him a few bucks. He owed millions by comparison and shook him down. Didn't he hear his words coming back to him from the fellow who asked for mercy? Apparently not. That's a terrible travesty and a contradiction in terms for Christians not to show mercy. Somebody who consistently doesn't show mercy may not even be a Christian at all. Truly happy Jesus said are the merciful for they will ultimately receive mercy from God. Since Paul has received from God a part in the glorious ministry of Jesus Christ, he does not despair. In spite of the attacks he's receiving, the glorious Christ and the privilege of serving him are great encouragement to the Apostles. First two, the Apostles are not discouraged about serving the Lord, appearances to the contrary. On the contrary, they have nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to hide. They have renounced the shameful hidden things. Their enemies falsely accuse them of ungodliness. The ministry of the new covenant is full of glory. That glory shines on everything the Apostles do. There is thus simply no place for hidden sins. All is open to God and human beings. And we do not walk in craftiness means that they do not act with trickery. Neither do we falsify the word of God by saying one thing and doing another, which contradicts the message of holiness, but by means of open proclamation of the truth, the gospel, we commend ourselves to every person's conscience in the sight of God. The ministers of the new covenant look with unveiled faces at Christ's glory. They have nothing to hide from God or fellow human beings. They proclaim the truth of the gospel openly. Paul's opponents will reply, if your message is so glorious and clear, why do you all not see it the way you do, Paul? Paul, your message is not clear. You're a false apostle and your message is your own invention. You cultist, something like that is coming his way. Paul says, even if our gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those who are perishing. Paul will not fault. He refuses to fault the glorious Christ or his gospel. Instead, darkness he insists resides in the hearers who reject the message of light in fact one can gauge his or her spiritual condition by their response to the gospel, those to whom the good news is hidden reveal at that point in time anyway that they are unsaved and heading for destruction. Of course, they could believe some other time before they pass away. Verse 4 is the most important one for our purposes. The perishing ones are further described by means of a relative clause, in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. Are you possibly going to translate? Has blinded their unbelieving minds. There's no big difference. Paul teaches that those who reject the gospel are in serious trouble. They not only show themselves to be lost by their negative response to the good news. They are in the clutches of a sinister force. I'm not denying the personality of Satan. Person and force, more powerful than they. The devil has blinded their thinking. There has been a satanic. I'm not saying that they're satanists. They could perfectly well deny the existence of Satan and this be true of them. There's been a satanic effect upon their minds. Procontents. The gospel is so glorious. This is an exaggerated statement that it takes Satan himself to blind unbelieving minds from the gospel's light. That's an exaggeration. Paul's blinding, sorry, Satan's blinding work is so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. This is either Satan's purpose or the result of his work. They both are very close in meaning. The evil one has a very specific intent. He wants to keep the unsaved from believing in the Savior. He works in the thinking processes of the unsaved so that they will not be savingly illuminated by the gospel. Notice the light words here, blinded see, light, glory, image. Paul is emphatic, that there's no lack of clarity or glory to the gospel. The good news is a message of the glory of Christ, who is the very image of God. The Lord Jesus reveals the invisible God to all who have eyes to see. The reason given here, why those who are perishing do not see, is that Satan has blinded their spiritual eyes. Let me skip down to 4-6. The reason why Paul preaches the gospel of Christ is that the creator God savingly illumined him. The God who said the light shall shine out of darkness as he who shined in our hearts with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The great creator of light, the quote of course, is from Genesis 1. And of everything else is responsible for giving spiritual light to Paul. The gospel is luminous, but the devil blinds the minds of the unsaved. One stronger than Satan, the creator himself, illumines the minds of the people of God with the gospel. I believe that Paul is implying that God's work of saving illumination of the gospel is a work of recreation. In any case, it is as much a work of the creator as creation was. To sum up, thus in response to enemy attacks, Paul holds firm to his conviction that the gospel is full of light. They can criticize him, and that hurts him, but when they criticize the gospel, them's fighting words for the apostle Paul. Men do not believe the gospel only because they are perishing and are blinded by the false God of this present evil world. The creator God savingly illumine the heart of Paul and will do so for the rest of the people of God. Theological conclusions from this passage, one reason why unsaved people do not believe the gospel is that Satan has blinded their thinking concerning question one from page 47. How does Paul describe the will of an unsaved person? Paul does not specifically mention the will of the unsaved in this passage. He does mention the thoughts or minds, no aimata. The unsaved person's thoughts or mind has been blinded by Satan so that he will not believe the gospel. That blinding is not merely hypothetical but effective as a comparison of verses 3 and 4 will show. Paul talks about two actual responses to his preaching ministry. Those to whom the gospel is hidden are those who are perishing in whose case Satan has blinded their thoughts. The language is given in terms of a metaphor of light and darkness rather than a bondage and freedom. Nevertheless, the message is plain. A more powerful being than sinners has blinded their unbelieving minds. They are thus bound or blinded until a greater one comes to free them. Two, it appears that our passage answers the second question which we initially asked thus. An unsaved person can do nothing to be saved. He is blinded by the devil and in need of divine illumination. He cannot illumine himself or he is blinded. He cannot even believe the gospel for it is hidden to him. The reason given here, again, it is proper to appeal to other passages. I have to be open to that but I'm starting with some that seem to pertain to this question. The reason given here for unbelief is that Satan has blinded those people who do not believe at this time. Third, this passage does not mention the word grace. It speaks rather in terms of illumination. Saving illumination is the work of God, the Creator. It is only when God shines in hearts with the light of the gospel that people are saved. There is no general illumination of mankind taught in this passage. There is an efficacious and particular enlightenment which is the work of God. Questions or comments? Of course the study is incomplete. Questions or comments? Yes, sir. Comment is can a person not believe and can a person believe and not accept the gospel? It is a question of semantics as I have heard you. Biblically speaking in the gospel of John for example, believing the gospel accepting Christ are different ways coming to Jesus are different ways of talking about the same thing. Receiving him, in fact, believe is used 99 times in John's gospel. Sometimes a false or partial belief too so it ends up being kind of a complicated matter but could a person not understand the gospel? Yes, they could. Could a person not even give ascent is how I would say it. Give ascent to the to the facts of the gospel and not be saved. Yes, they can. In that way, James 2 says the demons believe and tremble. Luther had a witty comment. I think he said at least a tremble. Some of his hearers didn't even have any response in the gospel. And he thought the demons had a better response. The demons know the gospel is true. So yes, one can ascent and not believe. I'm talking here and not be saved. I'm talking here of a saving belief of a belief of an acceptance of a coming to Christ. However you want to say it, that is saving that results in salvation. We don't have time to do anything with Ephesians 2. I'll just mention to you it is a passage that speaks of people being spiritually dead. You're probably already familiar with that. And they're children of wrath, they're deserving of the wrath of God as well which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. Other comments or questions? Yes, a question for clarification. Am I saying that a person on his or her own is not able to believe in order to be saved? Yes, the answer is yes. Now people do believe and they're saved. And we rejoice in that. And in fact, we want to be part of that. We want to be involved with people and seeing many people be saved. But this study, the reason I'm bringing this up now is that somebody could say, well, that's just going to hinder it. The elect are going to get saved anyway. So why would this a gospel? Because it is God's ordained means for bringing His people to Himself. Because God is God. He does electing. He does dying on the cross and rising again. He does the opening up of hearts. Acts 16, the Lord opened Lydia's heart and she believed. We don't do any of that. Neither do we create the world or hold the world together. But we are servants of God who under God share the gospel person to person. And we look for God to work. And the same God, it's a great strengthening thing to me to think of Paul's words. The same God who called the light out of darkness is going to do a work of the new creation in people's lives. I can't control it or predict it. But we can be part of it. And God who is in the business of saving sinners will use us. So this doesn't stifle evangelism is it should not. It should foster it by guaranteeing us of results, not in particular cases. But overall, it guarantees us of results if we get out there with a fish or and get our fishing line in the water. God wants to bring people to Himself. And people apparently are unable to save themselves. I might just point to one one section of the Westminster confession of faith. Chapter nine deals with the freedom of the will and is a very nice treatment. It deals with four different states. In our state of innocency, man had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well pleasing to God. But yet mutably so that he might fall from it. And as you know, as the story played itself out, in fact, he did fall from it. But in the state of Innocence, innocence, it was a real freedom of will. Man by his fall into a state of sin, so state of innocency, state of sin number two, has has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good, accompanying salvation. So as a natural man being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself there unto. Number three, the state of grace. When God converts a sinner and translates him into the state of grace, he frees him from his natural bondage under sin and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good. Yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil. State of innocency, Adam and Eve had real freedom of the will, or within creaturely limitations, but they were able to sin. In fact, they did. State of sin were unable to rescue ourselves. State of grace, by God's grace, we have been freed. God has overcome the bondage of the will and set us free so he can do his will, but yet not perfectly and only his will. State of glory is the last state the fourth. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only. I commend to you chapter nine of free will of the Westminster Confession of Faith as an act summary of my understanding of the Bible's teaching concerning some of those matters. Let's take a break and come back at quarter after.