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                         Hyper-Calvinism


     Hyper-Calvinism is an overemphasis on the doctrines taught
by John Calvin, the Swiss Protestant reformer. The main points of
Calvinism are usually designated by the word TULIP. Of these five
doctrines, four of them are unscriptural and, therefore, classify
"Calvinism" as a heresy.

     Now, let us make ourselves clear at the beginning. We
believe that John Calvin was a Christian. When we talk about John
Calvin we are talking about a Protestant reformer who at least
had enough sense and enough faith in the word of God to see that
a man, when he is born again, could not be unborn again. We will
talk about this more when we get to the fifth point of Calvinism
called "perseverance of the saints," or sometimes called
"predestination." In either case, Calvin was smart enough to see
that man was not saved by works or kept saved by works. We'll
grant him this much and beyond this we will grant him very, very
little indeed. A man who would burn a man at the stake for
disagreeing with him doctrinally is not a man to be emulated or
followed or admired. We may admire John Calvin for certain
things, but we certainly cannot admire him for his attitude
toward what the Bible says about these matters. Any man who would
set up a theocracy in Geneva and try to put upon the body of
Christ the Old Testament laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers
and Deuteronomy, while talking about being "saved by grace," is
not a man to be followed anywhere by anybody who knows the word
of God.

     Now, we will grant you that coming out of the Dark Ages
before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, there was a great deal
that was commendable in the Reformers because, after all, they
were coming out of a very dark period and a very long period of
Bible ignorance. This is not an alibi for the ignorance to
continue. The atrocious emphasis placed upon Calvinism by many of
the Puritans led them to burn people at the stake and today has
led such people as Mauro and Ross and Arthur W. Pink and Berkhof
and Dabney and Kuiper and Hodge and the systematic theologians of
reformed theology, namely Machen and Warfield, to teach that God
is all through with the Jews, which He is not; that there will be
no Rapture before the Tribulation, which there will be; that no
personal Antichrist will reign on this earth three and one-half
years, which he will; and that there will be no millennial reign
of Christ on this earth before the White Throne Judgment, which
there will. In plainer words, when we talk about the five points
of Calvinism, we should always make it very clear to the student
that, although John Calvin did teach these things, he taught a
great deal more besides this that also was false. For example, a
man says, "Are you a Calvinist?" I answer, "Not if I can help
it." I mean anybody who knew John Calvin and what he taught would
certainly never talk about being a "Calvinist."

     We can talk about being a Calvinist on one point out of
five. That is, we can go along with John Calvin on twenty percent
of what he believed. I would not say that following a man for
twenty percent of what he believed would make him a "Calvinist."
That is a little overstatement. We call it an
"oversimplification." These people that divide people off into
Arminians and Calvinists forget that the argument between Jacob
Arminius and John Calvin had to do with the operation of free
will in getting saved and the main disagreement was after they
were saved could the man "unbelieve" and be lost again. Now,
Calvin had this point right, but just because Calvin happened to
hit it right one time out of five would certainly make him no
example for a Bible believer to follow. When I got my Master's
Degree they asked me at the inquest, "Are you an Arminian or a
Calvinist?" I answered, "I am an Arminian until I get to Calvary
and after that I am a Calvinist." They didn't like that too well.

     We would also like to make clear that we are not saying that
God didn't use Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Spurgeon was a very
excellent preacher and soul winner, but the souls he won to
Christ were not won through the five points of Calvinism. We're
not saying that Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a heretic because he
believed these things. Many people who believe the doctrines of
Calvinism only have a head belief in these things. The doctrines
of Calvinism were accepted by the French Huguenots with good
effect on their personal lives. The doctrines of Calvinism were
accepted by the Puritans with some good and some bad effects, and
the doctrines were accepted by the Scotch Presbyterians with some
good and some bad effects.

     We are talking here about the false teaching of John Calvin
on total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement and
the so-called "irresistible grace." Where a preacher or teacher
puts an emphasis on these points, we call this "hyper-Calvinism."
Somebody said, "Well, it's just Calvinism." No, this depends upon
the emphasis. George Whitefield was a moderate Calvinist and
George Whitefield said moderate Calvinism is the best teaching
for evangelism. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a very moderate
Calvinist, and if you will read The Metropolitan Pulpit (the
sermons he preached through the years), you will find that less
than one out of twenty deals with the doctrine of election or the
doctrine of predestination. In plainer words, when we say "hyper-
Calvinism," we are talking about an overemphasis on something
that Calvin taught; exactly as when we say "hyper-
Dispensationalist" we mean an overemphasis on dispensations. We
are not saying that everything a Dispensationalist says is false.
Anybody knows there are several dispensations in the word of God
and this is apparent to the most naive of Bible students. For
example, any unsaved man recognizes an Old Testament and a New
Testament. So, when we talk about "hyper-Calvinism" we are not
talking about the extending of Calvin's doctrines to a place
beyond which he taught, but we are merely talking about an
overemphasis on what he taught. In this case, four of the things
he taught were simply not so. Four of the five points of
Calvinism are unscriptural, non-Biblical, philosophical nonsense.
And we will talk about these in this lesson.

     Let me again make myself very clear. It is true that many
people believed this and taught this who were saved, in spite of
their lack of common sense and in spite of their lack of serious
Bible studies. But, when we talk about these matters, we are
talking about the damage done to the body of Christ by such
writings as The Sovereignty of God by Arthur W. Pink (the
expression is not found anywhere in the word of God), such
writings as Systematic Theology by Machen, Warfield and Berkhof,
such works as The Institutes of Calvin that deal with total
depravity, and such works as the nonsense propagated in the 1940s
and 1950s by Rolffe Barnard and L. R. Shelton out of New Orleans
which polluted a whole stream of Christians for two, three and
four decades.


                        I. Total Depravity


     The first of these is called total depravity. The doctrine
of total depravity is based on the idea that since the unsaved
man is "deadin trespasses and sins," he can do nothing to receive
Christ. Now, let me make myself clear. I have dealt with scores
and scores of Calvinists and hyper-Calvinists in every kind of
situation, and nowhere in this file are we going to misrepresent
their position. All these people have persecution compolexes.
When you begin to talk about these matters they say, "Oh, no, we
don't believe that. We really believe this." And, after you talk
to them thirty minutes you find that they believe exactly what
you said they believed to start with. For example, any born-
again, Bible-believing Christian knows that the unsaved man can
do nothing spiritually good that God will accept for salvation.
Now, anybody knows this. But, to say that because of this the
unsaved man cannot do what God told him to do to obtain salvation
is a horse of another color.

     It's a pale horse, and death and hell follow it.

     The teaching of total depravity is what we call non-
Biblical, unscriptural heresy. When a man says "total depravity,"
he is trying to tell you that depravity extends to acts of the
will. Furthermore, he is trying to tell you that since the sinner
is dead in trespasses and sins (which he is, Eph. 2:1-4) that he
cannot receive Jesus Christ even though God commands him to
receive Jesus Christ. In one of John's epistles he said the
commandment was that we "believe on His son, Jesus Christ." Now,
this at the very outset puts Calvin and the Calvinistic system in
rough shape. Here God has commanded men to do something that they
are unable to do, according to Calvin, and the question arises,
"Would God do this?" The standard alibi offered by Berkhof, Gill,
Dabney, Hodge and the Puritans is, "Well, God commanded men to
keep the commandments and they couldn't keep the commandments."
Yes, but then you were told that the commandments were a
schoolmaster to lead you to Christ. What these men are trying to
tell us (regardless of what they say they're trying to tell us)
is that God gave the commandments, knowingt that we could not
keep them, so that they could lead us to the realization that we
were dead in trespasses and sins and depraved and without hope
and could not keep the law (because the carnal mind is enmity
against God, neither can he keep the commandments). This would
show us our need of Christ, and so when we saw our need of Christ
we still couldn't receive Him, even though God commanded us to do
it. Of course, the Calvinist will stumble all over himself and
say, "No, that isn't what we teach," and then run off to some
verse we haven't discussed yet. But since we are going to discuss
all the verses in this file, there isn't much point in getting in
a hurry, is there?

     Now, the hyper-Calvinist, like the hyper-Dispensationalist
and the Jehovah's Witness and the Church of Christ, have what we
call a circular pattern of reasoning; it means the inability to
face a text and stay with it. For example, the verse used to
prove total depravity is Ephesians 2:1-4 and in particular verse
1, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and
sins." There is no doubt about what they are trying to say. They
are trying to say that since the man is dead spiritually, he
cannot receive Jesus Christ of his own free act of will or
choice. This is not misrepresenting the position. Anybody who has
studied Calvinistic theology knows perfectly well that the format
(the order of salvation) is, first of all, God quickens the
sinner regardless of his will and then implants the new seed of
the new birth within him; secondly, the man gets under conviction
and repents and "believes on Christ." Somebody said, "Oh, we
don't believe that." Well, you're just dishonest or stupid or
both. If you are a hyper-Calvinist that is exactly what you
believe. And if you don't believe that, you don't know what a
hyper-Calvinist believes and you haven't studied John Calvin.
That is what Calvin and Berkhof and Dabney and Gill and Hodge and
Pink taught.

     Now, the teaching that depravity extends to the will and,
therefore, is "total" is what we call a Bible-rejecting,
unscriptural, Satanic heresy. The term "freewill" is a Bible
term. The expression "sovereignty of God" is not a Bible term.
The word "freewill" is found in Ezra 7:13. The expression "the
sovereignty of God" and "irresistible grace" will be found
nowhere in the word of God. The expression "freewill" is found in
Ezra 7:16. The Bible knows nothing about sovereign grace at all.
The expression occurs nowhere. We find offerings "willingly
offered" and offered "freely" in Exodus 35:5, Exodus 35:21 and
Exodus 35:29. Now, do you know what is so shocking about the
passages I just cited from the Old Testament? None of the people
in them were born again. And none of the people we "in Christ" or
"chosen in Christ," and not a single one of them was quickened by
the Holy Spirit. This is why we say total depravity is a non-
Biblical heresy.

     John Calvin was a good Bible student for the day and age in
which he lived, but he certainly was not a deep student of the
scripture or a believing student of all the scripture, as you
will quickly gather if you study his work. Any man who would burn
a man at the stake for disagreeing with him about the Trinity
could hardly be classified as a serious Bible student. John
Calvin had Servetus burned at the stake for disagreeing with him
about the doctrine of the Trinity. This is not the mark of a
mature Christian or a Bible-believing Christian. I never met a
Christian in my life who believed all the Bible that would think
of doing such a thing. But John Calvin would and did.

     Now, here is the thing: A man who tells you that a person
has to be "quickened" by the Holy Spirit before he can willingly
do something of his own free will to please God is lying. Nobody
in the Old Testament until the time of Christ had been born
again. They were all "deal in trespasses and sins." They were all
joined to the flesh; none of them had received spiritual
circumcision (Col. 2). Their soul was stuck to the body and
spoken of as the same, as you know from studying Jehovah's
Witness literature. Yet they all were responsible for pleasing
God and acting of their own free will, and they had a free will
with which they acted and it is said to be a free will.
Therefore, the doctrine of total depravity is not to be
countenanced by the serious student of the word of God. We may
grant that man's nature is depraved. We may grant that there is
nothing good in man. We may grant that. We may grant that a man
is dead spiritually and that apart from the new birth he cannot
be born again, regenerated and placed in the body of Christ and
that God has to do the action of the new birth. But to say that
because this is true that man has no free will is nonscriptural
blasphemy contrary to the word of God, no matter who professes to
believe it. After all, some of the greatest Christians who ever
lived were so screwed up in their doctrine that you couldn't get
them unplugged with a corkscrew.

     Ephesians 2:1-4 is talking about an operation that didn't
take place until after the resurrection, and it only had to do
with born again believers in this day and age. And before any of
these people could be "quickened," as the scriptures say, they
had to do something. Did you notice that? John 1:12-13, "But as
many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
but of God." The new birth is conditioned upon you receiving
Jesus Christ. There is not a case in the history of the universe
where any man was ever "born again" until he received Jesus
Christ, and to say that total depravity extends to acts of the
will is nonsense.

     The Bible says in John 3:36 about these matters, "He that
believeth on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believeth
not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth
(present tense) on him." Now, my good friend, if you were one of
the elect and predestinated to be saved, how do you account for
the fact that the wrath of God abode upon you constantly before
you believed? Is that any way to treat "the elect"? And let me
ask you this. What is the wrath of God doing abiding on you when
you can't do anything about it? Does that sound like the Lord? Do
you think the Lord would pour out His wrath on an unsaved man
when the unsaved man could do nothing about his condition? That
is what Calvin thought and taught and believed. And that is what
Barnard and L. R. Shelton thought and believed and that is what
you will find in that hardshell Baptist paper put out in Ashland,
Kentucky, called The Baptist Examiner. That is the teaching.

     Continuing on total depravity, in Isaiah 45:19 this matter
is debunked: "I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the
earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I
the Lord speak righteousness, I declare things that are right."
In Luke 17:1 you are told that even though offences have to come
(there is your sovereignty and predestination!), "woe unto him,
through whom they come," putting the responsibility clearly in
your lap. The question that Calvin could never face and discuss
and the question which no hyper-Calvinist can ever face and
discuss is how an unsaved man can be responsible for something
that he is unable to do and be held accountable for something he
could not have done if he had tried. The god of Calvin is an
unjust god in this respect. When I say that, of course, I mean
the theological god of Calvin. I would say that Calvin was saved,
but his theological god wasn't playing with a full deck.

     You read in Acts 2:23, "Him," (Christ) "being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." He puts the
responsibility right on them. In Acts 4 He is very clear about
it. He says in Acts 4:10, "Be it known unto you all, and to all
the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom YE crucified...." Acts 3:14-15, "But ye...killed
the Prince of life...." Stephen, in Acts 7:52, called these
people murderers. They are responsible. Now, the question comes
up that if the man is dead in trespasses and sins and is not
responsible for receiving Christ, how can he be responsible for
rejecting Christ? The answer is pure, unadulterated "baloney."
Not once in their lifetime did Calvin or any of the Purtians ever
figure it out. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Is
there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. God will not lay upon
a man more than is right for him. Didn't you read in Romans where
he is talking about rewarding Gentiles for seeking the Lord even
though they were dead in trespasses and sin? Did you notice that
thing in Romans 1 and 2? Did you notice that? Did you notice in
Romans 2:7-10 that there is no mention of the elect at all and
that the entire passage had to do with unsaved Jews and Gentiles
who were either seeking God or else doing wrong? There wasn't
anybody "elect" in the whole chapter. Read it--Romans 2. And they
are responsible for their deeds and their motives as unsaved
sinners dead in trespasses and sins, Jew or Gentile. Total
depravity is a nonscriptural heresy.


                    II. Unconditional Election


     The next non-scriptural heresy taught by John Calvin is
called "unconditional election." This is based on Ephesians 1:4,
and, as we said before, even though the Puritans were good,
godly, dedicated, consecrated, separated men, they were not very
profound Bible students and they couldn't handle the verse. When
we say this we want to make ourselves clear. Many people can be
godly, dedicated, separated, doubly-sanctified, double-separated
people like the Pharisees and yet know nothing about the word of
God. In Ephesians 1:4 Calvin read, "According as he (God) hath
chosen us in him (Christ) before the foundation of the world..."
Verse 5, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his
will." Now, this was supposed to be unconditional election, the
idea that it was according to the arbitrary good will of God
which He purposed in Himself in Ephesians 1:9. But as we said
before, unconditional election is rather stupid and rather wicked
in view of the fact that 1 Peter 1:1 and 2 says that your
election is conditioned. Why contradict the scripture and make a
liar out of God when God has clearly spoken about these matters?
Election is conditioned on foreknowledge by the clear statement
of 1 Peter 1:2, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father," and this election has nothing to do with eternity. This
election was "through sanctification of the Spirit, unto
obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." As
predestination is conditioned on foreknowledge (Rom. 8:29), so is
election conditioned on foreknowledge.

     The trouble Calvin had was with the word "chosen" and the
peculiar way that Ephesians 1:4 is worked. And, of course, Gilpin
and Ross and the rest of them never did get the thing straight.
When these Bible-rejecting Christians read Ephesians 1:4, they
read "according as God chose us when we were in Christ before the
foundation of the world." That is not what the verse says. The
verse says, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world..." God did His electing or choosing
before the foundation of the world, but notice where His choice
was. It was "in Christ."

     Calvin had this remarkable boo-boo in his theology which he
never got completely straightened out. He actually thought that
before Genesis 1:1 you were in Christ. Then when Adam showed up
you fell out of Christ and got back in Christ when you were
"quickened" (Eph. 2:1-4). Why he figured that you couldn't then
fall back out of Christ again is beyond finding out. But he did
have one point of Calvinism right, the perseverance of the
saints--predestination to be conformed to God's image. He had
that part right, but certainly not unconditional election. There
is not a case in the Bible where God elected anybody until they
did something He told them to do. Not a case. Somebody said,
"Well, those things were back there in eternity." No, they were
not. God made His choice in ternity, but His choice was placed in
time. You see, you weren't "in Christ" until you trusted Christ.
And when God chose He chose for election the people in Christ.
You were not in Christ before Genesis 1:1.

     Somebody said, "What about that thing over in Romans 9:11
where he says, "For the children being not yet born, neither
having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according
to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth"?"
 You had better look at that context again. That context wasn't
Genesis 1:1. That was at the time Rebecca conceived (Rom. 9:10)
and it was based on foreknowledge (Rom. 9:12). When Calvin was
faced with these matters he hit upon a capital way to get out of
the mess, but then he got into another mess that he never could
explain. He figured that if Esau and Jacob were subjects and
objects of election before they were born and since the saved
were elected because they were chosen in Christ before the
foundation of the world that before a baby is born the baby is
elect or non-elect. This led to a very embarrassing question
asked of him by Jacob Arminius. The question was, "Since only God
knows who the elect are, what are you going to do about all the
babies that die? Are they all elect babies?" And the very
embarrassing answer given by Calvin and his followers was, "Well,
we can hope for the best." But this didn't solve any problem
because if adoption and election are sure, as Berkhof says, then
the decree for reprobation is as eternal as the decree for
salvation. Some babies go to hell in Calvin's system. You say,
"We don't believe that." Then you don't believe in the five
points of Calvinism. In the five points of Calvinism a man is
elected before he is born, according to Romans 9:11; the election
is unconditional. It is true that Calvin was not a very
conscientious student of scripture. If he had been he would have
noticed in the passages in Romans 5:13 and Romans 4:15 that any
child, before he is old enough to know good and evil (Deut.
1:39), is "elect" as far as salvation is concerned and his sins
are not charged to him. But, as we said before, Calvin was a very
shallow student of the word of God. He was a very deep
philosophical student and a very deep theological student, but to
say that simply because a man has had twenty-two years of
education and has mastered Hebrew and Greek and theology that he
is an intelligent Bible student is to misread the problem and
give a false answer. Some of the biggest blockheads, Biblically,
who ever ived in this world are theological and philosophical
students.

     "Unconditional election" was supposed to be a matter that
was based on nothing and yet you are told that it is conditioned
on foreknowledge. Some of you say, "What about that 'chosen'
there?" Well, that thing won't work in the passage because you
certainly were not in Christ before the foundation of the world.
You were only in Christ when you received Jesus Christ as your
Saviour and that is the time that you were chosen to be adopted.
You see, Calvin never could get the difference between Old
Testament salvation and New Testament salvation. He always had
enough Roman Catholic in him to be a Judaizer and he never could
get it through his head that when the Bible talked about
"predestinated to be conformed to the image" that that w3as not
just salvation. Predestinated to be conformed to God's image is a
privilege that only saints in this age have. Moses and Elijah
still have their own images. That is why we say that Calvin was
not a very deep student of the Bible. Neither was Charles Haddon
Spurgeon. We're not going to deny that when Charles Haddon
Spurgeon preached salvation through the shed blood of Jesus
Christ that he got souls saved, but then so did John Wesley.
Wesley got more of them saved than Spurgeon did. And Wesley
wasn't even sound on the perseverance of the saints. So, let's
keep our discussion on a Biblical basis.

     Speaking of unconditional election, these people have
forgotten (if they ever knew) that the choosing of God not only
took place in termnity, but the choosing was based on
foreknowledge and the object chosen had to be in Christ. You were
not in Christ until you received Him as your Saviour. And when
you received Him as your Saviour, the Holy Spirit put you in
Christ and put Christ in you. When you received Jesus Christ, the
Holy Spirit predestinated you (1) to the adoption of sons, (2) to
be conformed to Christ's image, (3) according to God's good
pleasure and that had nothing to do with your salvation at all.
Your salvation had to do with you receiving Jesus Christ. When
Noah believed God, he was not "predestinated to be conformed" to
God's image or Christ's image. He was not put "into Christ." And
he was not adopted as a son of God. So, Calvin, as we said, was a
very shallow Bible student. He had this wild idea that since he
found one truth in the New Testament that it applied everywhere
indiscriminately to everybody he wished to put it down upon; and,
of course, it doesn't. The second teaching of John Calvin,
"unconditional election," is nonscriptural nonsense.



                     III.  Limited Atonement


     The third point of TULIP is called limited atonement and is
based on John 10:11, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep," and on the fact that in Ephesians
5:25 we read that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for
it. Of all the blasphemous things taught by John Calvin, this was
perhaps the worst. This was the obscene blasphemy that Jesus
Christ only died for the elect and that no blood was shed for
anybody else except the people whom God had chosen--the elect.
Strangely enough, Calvin would allow that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
David and Moses were saved by the shed blood of Christ, and yet,
it never occurred to Calvin that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and
Moses were never in Christ and were not elected in Christ and
were not chosen in Christ and were not "predestinated to be
conformed to His image." Calvin had his Bible kind of screwed up.
Limited atonement was the teaching that Christ died only for the
elect. And, of course, if there is anything the Bible makes clear
it makes clear that this is just nonscriptural foolishness. In
the first place, Calvin taught that only the elect could repent.
Yet, low and behold, we are told in the gospels that Tyre and
Sidon would have repented if they had had the opportunity that
Capernaum had. If they could have repented then they were elect
because only the elect can repent. But Sodom and Gomorrah and
Tyre and Sidon are said to be cast down to hell. If they are in
hell they couldn't have repented according to limited atonement
and irresistible grace. But Christ said they would have. So we
see how this nonsense proceeds.

     The limited atonement that was taken out of John 10:11 was
done by the combobling or misappropriation of verses where the
heretic interprets a complete verse or statement in the light of
an incomplete verse or statement, which, of course, is
irrational. A complete statement is never to be interpreted in
the light of an incomplete statement anywhere in or out of court,
in or out of the Bible, or in or out of common sense. The
complete statement is found in 1 Timothy 2:6, "Who gave himself a
ransom for all, to be testified in due time." You cannot
interpret 1 Timothy 2:6 by John 10:11. First Timothy 2:6 says
that Christ "gave himself a ranson for all, to be testified in
due time." When a heretic like Roth Barnard or L. R. Shelton or
Arthur W. Pink is confronted with this verse, he will tell you
that the "all" in the passage means all of the elect. (For this
reason Lorenzo Dowell often referred to the Calvinists as "whole
part men." That is, where the scriptures said "all" or "whole,"
they said "part.") You will notice the context of 1 Timothy 2 has
nothing to do with the elect. Verse 2, "...For all that are in
authority"--not the elect. Verse 4, "Who will have all men to be
saved"--not the elect. Verse 6, "Who gave himself a ransom for
all"--not the elect--"to be testified in due time."

     So, Calvinists, as hyper-Dispensationalists and Church of
Christ elders, seem to have a terrible time with what we call
"context." They seem to be Roman Catholic in their misuse of
texts to prove things that are not so. Notice in 1 Timothy 2:4
that it says, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth." There was not one word there at
all about all the elect. By the same token in John 3:16 it says,
"the world." Now, in dealing with these, Calvin, as most
heretics, would say "the world" there meant "the elect of the
Gentiles" and then he would run to 1 John for a while to try to
prove something or other. But it won't come through. Christ said
in John 17 that He prayed not for the world. Well, He's praying
for the elect, isn't He? Don't you read that Jesus Christ ever
liveth to make intercession for those that come unto God by Him?
Well, He's not praying for the world in John 17. How say ye then
that the "world" in John 17 are the Gentile elect? This shows the
stupid exegesis that blundering fools get into sometimes in an
effort to avoid the will of God. Those of us who have had many,
many years dealing with the Calvinists and hyper-Calvinists know
that many of these men, instead of going out after souls, and
being about the Father's business, spent their time locked up in
rooms reading books and trying to get an alibi not to do what God
told them to do; or instead of being patient and plowing and
planting and sowing, they wanted to reap so badly that when they
couldn't reap they suddenly decided that all their members were
lost and spent the rest of the time trying to resave their
members. This is the characteristic of the hyper-Calvinist and we
will talk about this more later when we talk about the practical
manifestation of this heresy. Nothing can kill a church any
quicker or any deader than the five points of Calvinism. It will
kill your church deader than a hammer.

     Limited atonement is an ancient blasphemy. in 1 Peter 2:1 we
are told that Christ shed His blood for unsaved false teachers
and false prophets. To teach, therefore, that Christ shed His
blood only for the elect is to make a liar out of God and to
insult the Holy Spirit who wrote the word of God. Second Peter
2:1 says that Christ's blood bought unsaved false teachers and
false prophets--hardly the elect. "Limited atonement," therefore,
is what Charles Wesley called it, "Oh, horrible decree, worthy of
the place from whence it came. Forgive their hellish blasphemy
that charge it to the Lamb." In Hebrews 10:29 we are told that a
man can go to hell after being sanctified by the blood of the
covenant. If you think that refers to a Christian who is elect
and then loses it, you are not a Calvinist and, therefore, it has
to be a man who is not saved and yet he is sanctified by the
blood. Explain how an unsaved man can be sanctified by the blood
when the blood was only shed for the limited elect. Calvin,
Berkhof, Dabney, Hodge, and Gill and the rest of them never could
explain it any more than a Campbellite could explain you
receiving the blood of Christ through the city water system.

     First Timothy 2:4, "Who will have all men to be saved, and
to come unto the knowledge of the truth," teaches unlimited
atonement. Second Peter 3:9, "...Not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance," teaches
unlimited atonement. And when the hyper-Calvinists are faced with
these clear verses they say, "Well, the Lord is longsuffering to
usward, meaning the elect, not willing that any would perish but
that all should come to repentance," which is the height of
absurdity and the depth of nonsense. Whoever heard of God being
longsuffering to the elect, not willing that any of the elect
should perish? Why, if they were elect in Calvin's sense they
couldn't perish. Limited atonement is nonsense. In 2 Peter 3:9,
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men could
slackness; but is longsuffering to usward...." Who? Men. Look at
the context. Verse 9, "...as some men count slackness...." Why,
both the saved and unsaved are found in the passage. Look at the
unsaved in verse 3 and verse 5. Look at the saved people in verse
11 and look at verse 17 at the saved and lost people. "...Not
willing that any should perish...." Any of the elect? The elect
couldn't perish if they tried in Calvin's system. We're dealing
with nonsense. Depraved nonsense.



                     IV.  Irresistable Grace


     The fourth part of Calvin's system is called irresistable
grace, the fourth letter of the word TULIP. This is supposedly
taught by Acts 13:48, "...And as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed," and other passages where the Holy Spirit comes
upon a man and overthrows him against his will and grants him the
new birth without his participating in yielding or being in
subjection or being responsive to the Holy Spirit. Now, those of
us who are saved are not dumb enough to think the Holy Spirit
doesn't have to deal with a man in this age. We know that. We
know the Holy Spirit has to convict a man. We know the Holy
Spirit is the instrument of the new birth, but to say that the
man is an irresponsible agent who cannot act is nonscriptural
foolishness and not to be counted by the serious student of
scripture regardless of his educational or spiritual
qualifications. Now, the verse that John Calvin and The Baptist
Examiner pulled out to prove this goofball belief was Acts 13:48,
and when these silly people found the verse they read, "And when
the Gentiles heart this, they were glad, and glorified the word
of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed." Strangely enough, when Calvin got hold of this verse
(the Trinitarian Bible Society also made the same error) he got
some peculiar idea that all the people who were saved in this age
were ordained to eternal life before the foundation of the world
and then in due time they believed. This was done by taking this
verse and running it back to Ephesians 1:4. You will notice that
when you deal with a hyper-Calvinist his mind runs in this
circular pattern: Ephesians 2:1-4, Ephesians 1:4, John 10:11,
Acts 13:48, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 5, Ephesians 2, Ephesians 1,
John 10, Acts 13. As I said before, John Calvin, although he was
a precious shining light for his day, was not a very advanced
student of the word of God nor a particularly intelligent man
where it came to the word of God. He was a philosophical
theologian and a political administrator, or, as one man said,
"The Protestant pope of a pope-hating people." You see, John
Calvin never compared scripture with scripture once he tried to
prove his point. He would go to philosophy and theology to prove
his point. How he never discovered that these Gentiles in Acts
13:48 are mentioned in Romans 2:8-10 is past finding out.

     If John Calvin had studied his Bible, and, of course, he
didn't any more than Arthur W. Pink or Tolley or Toss, he would
have known that every Gentile who by "patient continuance in well
doing" sought for "glory and honour and immortality" (Rom. 2:7)
God ordained to eternal life (Rom. 2:7). And when Paul begins his
ministry here to the Gentiles, he is dealing with people, many of
whom have been seeking for glory, honor and immortality. Those
are the ones whom God "ordained" to eternal life, and the only
way they can get it is to believe. So, the ones whom God has
dordained to eternal life according to their works (Rom. 2:7)
believe on Christ and are saved by grace through faith.

     This, of course, runs entirely contrary to Calvin's system.
Calvin thought that since there were no works and since the
"arbitrary good pleasure of God" chose the elect without any
works that he simply could ignore Romans 2:7. But you cannot
ignore Romans 2:7, for the matchmate to Romans 2:7 is Acts 13:48,
and those who were "ordained to eternal life" are ordained to
eternal life on the basis of works following their conscience,
exactly as you find Cornelius in Acts 10. Acts 10 was a passage
that Calvin never could figure out. In Acts 10 there was a man
who was trying to get to heaven by works. He was not born again
or unconditionally elected by irresistible grace or anything. The
man was seeking glory and immortality like in Romans 2, following
his conscience, and his prayers came up as a memorial before God
(Acts 10:4); and on the basis of his sincere desire to please
God, he was given a chance to receive Christ and he believed on
Jesus Christ in Acts 10:43 and 44. Somebody said, "Well, he was
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." Why, he was
not in Christ until he received Christ. Do you know what the
condition of a so-called "elect" in Calvin's system was before
they got in Christ, before they received Christ? Did you ever
read the rest of Ephesians? Ephesians 2:12? The unsaved Gentile
was not one of the elect and he wasn't in Christ. He was dead. He
was in trespasses and sin. He was alone in the world, without
hope and without God, and God didn't even know him (Gal. 4:9),
"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of
God...." You were a blank before you received Jesus Christ.

     "Irresistable grace" is the simple teaching that God
overpowers the sinner and saves him against his will. If you have
read Acts 7 you know that is nonsense. Stephen said, "Ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost." The Christian who is saved can
grieve the Spirit, quench the Spirit and lie to the Spirit. Why
would anybody think that an unsaved man didn't have the power to
resist the Spirit of God when even a saved man resists the Spirit
of God when the Holy Spirit dwells in him? When we speak of
"irresistible grace" we are speaking about irreligious claptrap.
There is not a case in the Bible where anybody was saved
irresistibly against their will. When Eliezer, a type of the Holy
Spirit, went to see Rebecca, a type of the Bride of Christ, they
said, "Wilt thou go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."
Nobody knocked her down and dragged her out there against her
will.

     In Matthew 23:37 Jesus said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou
that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not!" There is the intention. Do you know what happened to
Jerusalem? The miracles, acts, signs and wonders of the apostles
ceased in it and there wasn't another miracle done in it after
Acts 7 and the people down there were starving in a famine in
Acts 11 and had to have relief sent to them. The city is torn
down in 70 A.D. and 500 Jews were crucified outside the city.
Somebody said, "Well, this sovereign grace of God, the sovereign
will of God, God's sovereign...." Ah, baloney! Christ said,
"...How often would I have gathered...and ye would not!" The
sovereign will of God in Matthew 23:37 was not for Jerusalem to
reject Christ. It was for Jerusalem to receive Christ and they
overthrow the sovereign will of God. How was that? "...How often
would I have gathered...." That is the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking, brother! You watch out for your blasphemous, smart
aleck mouth! That is the Lord Jesus Christ who said, "...How
often would I have gathered...and ye would not!" Do you think He
is lying?

     So, when we talk about the "sovereign will" and the
"sovereign grace" of God in Calvinistic literature, many times we
are talking about horseradish. The Lord was willing to save them.
They were not willing to be saved, according to Him; not
according to what you think or what Calvin thought or some
theological scheme that you cooked up over 1 Corinthians 1 and
John 10 to explain something you couldn't understand.

     Tell me something. How come the people in the Old Testament
got saved when none of them were regenerated by irresistible
grace? Somebody said, "Well, the Holy Spirit comes upon a fellow
and overpowers him and quickens him." He didn't come to Noah. Was
Noah saved? He didn't come to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Enoch,
Joseph, Moses and David. Were they saved? He didn't come to
Hezekiah or Asa. Were they saved? What do you mean "irresistible
grace"? There was no irresistible grace that overthrew Noah or
Moses or David or Isaac or Jacob. They were not in Christ, were
not chosen in Christ, were not regenerated, were not spiritually
circumcised, were not born again, were not conformed to the image
of Christ and were not adopted as sons. They were saved by an act
of their own free will while they were dead in trespasses and
sin. Do you realize that God Almighty held David accountable for
his sins although he was "dead in trespasses and sins" all of his
life? God held Saul accountable and Abimelech accountable and Asa
and Hezekiah and Manasseh and Jeroboam and Rehoboam and Ahab and
Jezebel and Elijah and Elisha accountable when they were not born
again and never experienced the new birth a day in their life.

     You see, Calvin was not a deep Bible student. He was what
you call a "biblical heretic." Now, it is true that he believed
in the fundamentals like every pope. It is true that he believed
in eternal security like any Baptist. But when we talk about the
five points of Calvinism we are talking about nonsense in four
out of the five. Irresistible grace is an unknown teaching in the
word of God. It is grace that can teach a man's heart to fear and
grace his fears relieve. It is the grace of God that allows a man
to receive Christ. We'll grant that. But, it is also the grace of
God that lets a man go on and live like the devil for years
without getting right. We talk about grace--anybody experiences
"grace." The devil has had 7,000 years or more of grace, but he
is not one of the elect. And he resisted what grace he had. So,
when we talk about irresistible grace we are talking about
nothing. There isn't any such thing. The term "irresistible
grace" is a nonscriptural, theological term and the term
"sovereign grace" is a lie agaainst God. The term "sovereign
grace" is the cliche used by these dead orthodox philosophers to
hint at the fact that God will give saving grace to some that He
doesn't give to others. This is sometimes called common grace and
special grace.

     Now, about this irresistible grace, do you know what Paul
said? Paul said, "I am made all things to all men, that I might
by all means save some," 1 Corinthians 9:22. Now, no matter what
you believe about the Holy Spirit, you have to admit that is very
strange language for somebody who believes that the Holy Spirit
is the only person at work convicting sinners and getting them
saved. If that is true, like Calvin said, then Paul took the
glory from God and the Lord should have dropped him on the spot.
After all, He said, "My glory will I not give to another" (Isa.
42:8). Paul said, "I am made all things to all men, that I might
by all means save some." And they were saved against their will
and born again without their permission? You say, "We don't
really teach that." Of course you do. You just haven't understood
or applied the full ramifications of Calvinism. Calvinism teaches
irresistible grace; the grace of God calls out the elect for whom
the blood atonement was made and doesn't call out anybody else,
and if He did call anybody else out it would be a terrible and
tragic mistake because there wasn't enough blood shed to take
care of the nonelect. (That is the third point in Calvinism
called limited atonement, which we have discussed.)

     Paul also claimed that he gave people the new birth through
the gospel. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:15 (there's nothing like
a little Bible study to clear up the mistakes of John Calvin),
"For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have
ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you...,"
not God or the Holy Spirit, "through the gospel." Now, aren't
these strange things for a man to say who believed the work was
all of God and who believed in "sovereign grace" and all this
stuff Paul was supposed to believe in that he didn't believe in?
Isn't this strange? And what is James saying when he says in
James 5:20, "Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner
from the error of his way shall save a soul from death...." He
"shall save a soul from death." Now, what do you make of these
things? A Calvinist says, "Well, what about that passage over
there...." Yeah, but you see, a Calvinist can never face
scripture. Calvinists, like Campbellites and Church of Christ
people and hyper-Dispensationalists, have what we call the hop-
skip-and-jump-merry-go-round type of mind that keeps hopping from
one verse to another without clearly facing a verse.

     For example, when you begin to talk about these matters and
about Paul being the instrument, the average hyper-Calvinist will
turn you immediately to 2 Timothy 2:10 and will read as follows:
"Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake that they may
also obtain salvation...." Now, isn't that rather stupid to take
it like John Calvin took it? I didn't read what the verse said. I
just read it the way every hardshell Baptist in this country has
been teaching it for two hundred years. That isn't what the verse
said, and if the verse said that, wouldn't it be a rather stupid
verse? Imagine Paul going through all this suffering, enduring
all these things so the elect could get saved. Listen, child, in
Calvin's system all the elect are going to be saved whether
anybody endures anything or not. Wouldn't you say it was rather
stupid to go through that much suffering to no point? Now, this
is the problem the Calvinist has in facing a verse and reading a
verse and, as we said before, the Campbellites, Calvinists and
hyper-Dispensationalists all have the circular type of reasoning.
They can't pinpoint a truth and deal with it. Their theology may
be properly called a "jackrabbit theology" or "hop, skip and
jump." Now, the verse said this: "Therefore I endure all things
for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." The context goes
further and says, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with
him...." And there is a warning in the passage to "study to shew
thyself approved unto God" right in the passage. And right in
this passage about the "elect's sake" not merely getting saved
but having eternal glory there is a warning about the
Presbyterian Reform and hardshell Baptist preacher teaching
Amillennialism--verses 17 and 18. In verses 17 and 18 two fellows
were turned over to the devil for teaching that the first
resurrection was past because there is only a spiritual
resurrection (Eph. 2:1-4). That is what John Calvin believed.
John Calvin was not a Premillennialist. He was an Amillennialist
as was J. Gresham Machen and Benjamin Warfield and as was Charles
Haddon Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards. Do you know what happened
to Hymenaeus and Philetus for teaching the first resurrection was
over because it was spiritual? At least one of them was turned
over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. You say, "Where
did you get that from? We got that from 1 Timothy 1:20,
Hymenaeus. So, as we said before, Calvin was not a very careful
student of the word of God.

     The classic passage for irresistible grace and unconditional
election is Romans 9; so, we will take a few minutes to briefly
discuss this chapter, but only a very few minutes because, after
all, those who know the word of God know that the calling and
election does not take place until the person has received Jesus
Christ. Sam Jones said, "A man can't get elected until he has got
his hat in the ring. He has got to be nominated before he can be
elected," which is a rather crude way of saying a great truth
that Calvin couldn't understand. When you really give an
oversimplification of a great truth such as Sam Jones gave, then
all these fellows holler and roar and spin their wheels and have
a fit, and yet their own statements are extremely oversimplified.
I mean, the idea of bringing down the truth of the Bible to five
points. Brother, you talk about an oversimplification.

     We are reading this passage in the light of the so-called
"unconditional election" and the so-called "irresistible grace."
Romans 9:9-13, "For this is the word of promise, At this time
will I come, and Sarah shall have a son." (That took place in
time in Genesis.) "And not only this; but when Rebecca also had
conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;" (that took place in
time after Gen. 15) ("For the children being not yet born," [that
took place in Genesis after she conceived, not before Genesis 1]
"neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God
according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that
calleth.") It was already said, "It was said unto her...." That
is, the prophecy was made ahead of time by the foreknowledge of
God showing you clearly that, knowing what the boys would do, God
elected one. Notice how the election was based on foreknowledge.
"It was said unto her, The elder" (that's a prophecy) "shall
serve the younger." That's a prophecy and it is a prophecy based
on foreknowledge. Do you know why God chose Jacob? Verse 13, "As
it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." Did
God love Jacob and hate Esau before they were born? Nonsense. You
never read one word about God loving Jacob and hating Esau until
years and years and years after Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses
were dead. Why did the Lord love Jacob? Because he had a regard
for spiritual things. Why did He hate Esau? Because he sold his
spiritual birthright. Did the Lord know they were going to do
this? Of course He knew. Knowing it, what did He do? He
prophesied to Rebecca and said, "The elder shall serve the
younger." This is a clear case of election based on foreknowledge
and has nothing to do with the good pleasure and arbitrary
pleasure of God at all. So, Calvin is off again.

     Continuing Romans 9:14, "What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? God forbid." Why shouldn't God elect a
fellow who is going to do right? Why not elect the man who
receives Christ? You say, "That election doesn't refer to a man
receiving Christ. Election refers to getting saved." You're
crazy. Nobody in the Old Testament received Jesus Christ. Were
they elected? Do you see the mess folks get into? Did you know
that the Jews in the Tribulation are referred to as the "elect of
God" in Matthew 24? And Calvin was such a Bible blockhead he
thought that Matthew 24 was a reference to the body of Christ.
Did you know that? Did you know that in Matthew 24:22 and 24 it
says, "...for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened,"
and "...deceive the very elect"? And you have people right now
today who have been fooling around with the philosophical,
theological system of Calvin for so long they are now teaching
that Christians go through the Tribulation. Do you know what
those dumb thumps thought? They thought that every time you saw
the word "elect" it had to refer to the body of Christ. Now,
isn't that strange in view of the scripture? Isn't that a strange
business? Did you ever stop to think about that word "elect," how
it first referred to people who are not in Christ and will never
be in Christ? Did you notice in Romans 11:5 and 7 when the Bible
is speaking about the Old Testament Israelites it says, "Even so
then at this present time also there is a remnant according to
the election of grace," and "What then? Israel hath not obtained
that which he seeketh for," (talking about Old Testament unsaved
Israel up to the time of Christ) "but the election hath obtained
it, and the rest were blinded." Why, the term "elect" originally
in your Bible is a reference to the Old Testament saints. It is
not a reference to the body of Christ. Neither Jacob nor Esau
were in the body of Christ. Neither one was in Christ, neither
one was circumcised, neither one was regenerated, and God did not
"grant either one repentance."

     Calvin was a little bit addled when it came to studying the
word of God. Now, we may say this about John Calvin. He was a
great administrator and a great political theologian and a great
philosophical exegete, but when we talk about believing the word
of God and being true to the word of God we will say that he was
right twenty percent of the time. We may follow him twenty
percent of the time. We thank God that occasionally a good man
like Jonathan Edwards or Charles Haddon Spurgeon had enough sense
to confine his Calvinistic preaching to twenty percent of his
sermons. If he hadmade it any more than that he would have made a
terrible mistake and the Lord wouldn't have used him. He would
have been a hyper-Calvinist. A hyper-Calvinist emphasizes all
five points constantly.

     Continuing Romans 9:15, "For he saith to Moses, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."

     This is probably the biggest stumbling block in the entire
Calvinistic system. When John Calvin read this passage, being
rather shallow in Bible study and being rather corrupted by his
theological and philosophical studies, he read it this way: "For
he saith to Moses, I will save whom I will save, and I will
regenerate whom I will regenerate. So then it is not of a man
that wills to receive Jesus Christ, nor of him that runs around
in circles, but of God that saves a man by irresistible grace."
Of course the verse had nothing to do with that.

     Looking at the verse very carefully, a great deal more
carefully than Berkhof or Machen or Warfield or any other Bible-
rejecting Fundamentalist ever looked at it, we learn first of all
that the reference was to Moses, who was not in the body of
Christ, who was not regenerated, and who was not conformed to His
image and who was not "chosen in Christ."

     Next we notice the reference to Pharaoh (v. 17) where the
Lord is talking about the judgments upon Pharaoh in Egypt in
Exodus, the Old Testament. Isn't this some place for a fellow to
start talking about a New Testament sinner receiving Jesus
Christ? Doesn't it strike you as rather weird that a man would
start in this place? What would you make of a man who got up and
began to talk about the doctrines of salvation and how a man is
saved and then pulled out as a prime proof text Moses dealing
with Pharaoh? Doesn't it strike you as rather odd in view of the
fact that when Moses dealt with Pharaoh, Genesis had not been
written nor had 1 and 2 Samuel and Proverbs and Psalms; Christ
had not come and had not died; and He had not been buried and had
not risen from the dead; and there was no New Testament written?
Doesn't it strike you as rather strange that when a man goes to
his proof text as a foundation text for his system, he goes to
Moses dealing with Pharaoh in Exodus? Rather hard to believe,
isn't it? But that is where John started. As a matter of fact,
Romans 9:16 and Romans 9:21-23 are the bedrock of the entire
Calvinistic system.

     As I said before, we are going to be much more careful in
reading the Bible than the expositors such as Arthur W. Pink and
Berkhof and Dabney and Kuiper and Hodge and Gill and the Puritan
Press and the Pilgrim Press. Verse 15, "For he saith to Moses, I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion." This led Calvin to
think that it was arbitrary free will without reference to
anything, which, of course, we have already seen is a lie. In 1
Peter 1:2 and in Romans 8:29 predestination and election are both
conditioned on foreknowledge, and right in the verse above is
election conditioned on foreknowledge.

     Romans 9:16, "So then it is not of him that willeth...."
Willeth what? This is the kind of bog and mire that the Bible-
rejecting Fundamentalist gets messed up in when he tries to make
the Bible conform to what he has learned in theology and
philosophy. There wasn't anything said there about Pharaoh not
having free will. There was nothing said there about somebody
willing to receive Jesus Christ. There was nothing in the passage
about God willing salvation for the sinner. Do you know what you
can find? You can find tracts up and down this country on TULIP
published by these heretics that have actually taken this verse
and tied it to Philippians and, by doing this, they have erected
the monstrous non-Biblical structure that God wills salvation for
the sinner because he can't will it himself. You would never
believe the verse that is quoted to prove this blasphemous
nonsense. The verse quoted is Philippians 2:13, "For it is God
which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good
pleasure."

     You wouldn't believe it unless you read it, but by coupling
Romans 9:16 with Philippians 2:13 these depraved, Bible-rejecting
Fundamentalists and Conservatives and Calvinists have said that
God works in the unsaved man to will for him because "it is not
of him that willeth."

     This amazing scripture abortion ranks with the theology of
the Campbgellite elders, the Roman Catholic priests and the
followers of Cornelius Stamm (who make the body of Christ begin
with Paul when the one man and the one new body and the middle
wall of partition was broken down at Calvary), and it is done by
the mangling and manipulation of scripture for privat
einterpretation. Notice in Philippians 2:13, "For it is God which
worketh in you..." And who is the you? It is an unsaved man who
can't receive Jesus Christ? My, my, my, look at verses 12 and 13,
"Wherefore, my beloved...work out your own salvation with fear
and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you" (the beloved
who are saved) "both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
These fellows are trying to tell us that after a man is
regenerated he still has no free will. This is the monstrous mess
that the Calvinist gets into. Now, it is true that if you read
the nonsense put out by Jonathan Edwards and Machen and Warfield
and Berkhof and Dabney and Kuiper and Hodge and L. R. Shelton and
Barnard and Gilpin and Ross that you won't see these glaring
deficiencies in their system, but that is because they never stay
with a verse long enough to deal with it.

     For example, if you went to Philippians 2:12-13 there isn't
a Calvinist I'm talking to who would discuss that verse ten
minutes with you, and it ought to be discussed at least thirty
minutes. I mean, after all, is there anybody dumb enough to think
that God has always had His will in your life? Is it really God
that "worketh in you both to will and to do of His good
pleasure"? Then why is there so much in your life even after
you're regenerated that is not according to His good pleasure?
You say, "Well, that's the...." Yeah, but don't run from the
verse. The verse was used to prove that God in an unsaved man
willed because the unsaved fellow couldn't will or receive Christ
so God willed for him, but the verse had to do with God working
in the life of a Christian. And, even if you apply it to a
Christian it can't be an infallible doctrinal statement because
God doesn't always have His will in your life and doesn't always
have His good pleasure from us. You know it and I know it, and if
you want to lie about it I'll talk to your wife or your children
or, better still, your mother. Now, is anybody so fullof nonsense
as to think that God has always done His "good pleasure" in the
life of a believer?

     The Calvinistic system eventually is designed to justify sin
in the life of a believer, especially a lazy believer who will
not do what God told him to do or who, having done what God told
him to do and not having gotten visible results, insists there
must be some mistake and alters the theological system so he can
justify his lack of results. Hardshell Baptist churches, as
anyone knows, are made up of this kind of people. Some Primitive
Baptists and hyper-Calvinists are Premillennial and only take
part of Calvin while professing to be Calvinists. After all, John
Calvin sprinkled babies. What could be any funnier than the
Baptist Examiner or the Christian Baptist talking about being
Calvinist when they don't believe in sprinkling babies or burning
people at the stake, and they are Premillennial? Rather a weird
follower of Calvin, wouldn't you say? Why these people think they
are "Calvinists" because they overemphasize five doctrines, and
four of them aren't even Bible doctrines.

     Coming back to Romans 9:16, "So then it is not of him that
willeth...." That willeth to do what? Calvin never found what the
what was. When a man is looking for a proof text to justify a lie
he can never find the context. Did you ever notice that? Did you
ever check these fellows writing these books on "verbal
inspiration"? They never can quote the verse that precedes their
text. Did you know that when they start quoting 2 Timothy 3:16,
you can't find one book on the market that ever quoted 2 Timothy
3:15? Do you know why? Because every man who set out to write on
verbal inspiration tried to go to 2 Timothy 3:16 to prove that
the King James Bible was not inspired. So, he couldn't find the
verse before it. Now, had Calvin had glasses he would have read
Romans 9:16, "For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy...I will
have compassion..." The context of verse 16 had nothing to do
with an unsaved sinner receiving Jesus Christ by an act of free
will. As we mentioned before, "free will" is a Bible statement
and a Bible doctrine and a Bible truth (Ezra 7:13; 7:15; 7:16,
Exod. 35:21; 35:5; and 35:29). You say, "Why did you use the Old
Testament?" Because in the Old Testament none of them were born
again and they were all dead in trespasses and sins and still had
a free will. Why did you think we used it?

     Romans 9:16, "So then it is not of him that willeth...."
That willeth what? Verse 15--a man cannot by act of will make God
have mercy on him or make God have compassion on him. If you want
mercy from God and compassion from God you are going to have to
come His way, not your way. What could be clearer than that in
the text, if a man could read? You can't make up your mind on how
to be saved. "All right, I am determined. I've decided by an act
of will that God is going to have mercy and compassion upon me."
You can't do it. It is of God. It is, verse 16, "...of God that
sheweth mercy." With such a clear thing, how do you suppose
Calvin could become so boggled down? How in the world could
anybody get that screwed up in the word of God with a context of
"have mercy" in verse 15 and with verse 16 closing with "mercy"?
How could that man have ever thought that the verse denied the
free will of man receiving Jesus Christ when the problem was not
even under discussion? You say, "Well, at Calvary the Lord has
mercy on a man and a man receives compassion at Calvary." Sure,
that is the whole point. The point is, if you want God to have
mercy and compassion upon you, you can't will it; you have to
obey God's will. And God has determined He will have mercy and
compassion on no man but a man who receives His Son as his
Saviour. What could be any clearer than that, unless you are
going to the Bible to look for proof texts to prove something
that is not so?

     Romans 9:17-18, "For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even
for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my
power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all
the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will he hardeneth." Did you ever actually read Exodus
to see what that was about? John Calvin didn't. He just took for
granted that God hardened the nonelect and saved the elect and
that was the end of it. A rather stupid way to do exegesis. Did
you ever go back there in Exodus and notice in chapter 3, before
God ever sent Moses down there, that He exhibited His
foreknowledge by saying, "And I am sure that the king of Egypt
will not let you go...."

     There is not a case in the Bible where election was based on
anything but foreknowledge.

     There isn't a case of arbitrary election anywhere in the
Book from cover to cover. That is not all. Did you notice that
before God hardened Pharaoh's heart that Pharaoh hardened his own
heart? Did you notice that? Why don't you go back and study the
passages? "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find
fault? For who hath resisted his will?" Now, when you apply that
to the matter of salvation you get a first-rate mess. Any man has
resisted the will of God who rejects Jesus Christ. "The Lord
is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance," 2 Peter 3:9. John says in 1 John 3:23, "And this
is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son
Jesus Christ...." A man says, "Who hath resisted his will?" Why,
when you apply that to salvation, it is perfectly apparent. Any
man who has rejected Christ has rejected or resisted the will of
God. The only way Calvin could get around that was to say that
the blood was shed only for the elect; therefore, it was the
"will of God" that the nonelect reject Christ. Therefore, the
nonelect sinner who had no blood atonement rejected Christ and
that was "the will of God." I don't care how you cook Calvin, it
comes out tripe no matter what you do with it. You can say, "Oh,
we don't really...." I know what you mean, you old liar. You mean
that by a lot of baloney on special and convenient grace and
common grace and superlapsarianism and intralapsarianism you have
erected a fog, a web of words where it looks like you believe
something you don't believe. We read you. What you mean is that
if you discuss the junk you read in those books it would sound
pretty high-class, wouldn't it?

     You know, some of you people deeply resent me boiling
everything down to simple language, don't you? Well, listen; One
day Truth and Error went swimming together, and while they were
down there in the old swimming hole Error stole Truth's clothes
and ever since then Error has been parading around as Truth,
while the Truth has been the naked Truth. Anything that is as
hard to explain as the Calvinistic system would have to be a lie.
Things that are true and honest and aboveboard are not that hard
to explain. When you try to make a man obey the will of God by
rejecting Jesus Christ, you are accusing God of sin.

     Romans 9:20, "Nay but O man, who art thou that repliest
against God?" Right. You have no business to say that. You know
what His will is. "The Lord is...not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance." Continuing with
verse 20, "Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why
hast thou make me thus?" The thing formed? Why, that had nothing
to do with before Genesis 1. There wasn't any clay around to form
things out of until after Genesis 1:1-4. There is no discussion
here about the eternal decrees of God in eternity. It says,
"Shall the thing formed...." you see the final mess that Calvin
got into. He suddenly had all the nonelect formed before Genesis
1:1, and then he made anything that had to do with birth or life
an eternal thing before Genesis 1:1 on the flimsy basis that
foreknowledge meant predestination. In the Bible, predestination
is conditioned on foreknowledge.

     Verse 21, "Hath not the potter power over the clay...."
There is no clay before Genesis 1:1. There is no potter shaping
clay in Genesis 1:1. There is no potter forming and shaping clay
in eternity. There is no clay around to form until Genesis 1:2.
"Hath not the potter power over the clay; of the same lump to
make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?" What is
the context? Verse 17, Pharaoh. The vessel is already there. The
vessel was raised up for a purpose.

     Twenty-two, "What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to
make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the
vessels of warth fitted to destruction." Fitted to destruction?
Make known his power and longsuffering, the vessels of wrath
fitted to destruction? What fitted them to destruction? Make
known his power and longsuffering, the Testament sense, what
fitted a vessel to destruction or for wrath? John 3:36, "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth
not the Son shall not see lie; but the WRATH of God abideth on
him." Is that clear? Romans 9:22, "What if God, willing to shew
his wrath...the vessels of wrath...." What are the vessels of
wrath? The ones that do not believe on Jesus Christ, John 3:36.

     This brings us right back where we started. This brings us
back to the godless, helling blasphemy taught by John Calvin that
the unbeliever cannot believe because God made it impossible for
him to believe because God fitted him for destruction before
Genesis 1:1. The "decree of reprobation" is eternal according to
all systematic theologians, whether you know that or not; and,
therefore, the unsaved man cannot believe; therefore, the wrath
of God abides on him for something for which he is unaccountable
and irresponsible.  I don't care where you stop with John Calvin
you are going to wind up in the same place. You can justify it
and say, "Ruckman's got a straw dummy. We don't really believe
that. We don't really teach that," until you are red, white,
black and blue. But the fact remains, in Calvin's system the ones
who are elected to damnation couldn't be saved if they believed
because there was no blood shed for them and they can't believe
because God has to believe for them and God only believes or
wills for the "elect."

     That is the nonsense about the "sovereignty of God" and
"sovereign grace," that is the irreverant, blasphemous tomfoolery
taught by John Calvin and the Calvinists. We discount everything
about them so far and put it in the wastebasket without a second
thought. We have covered the first four points of TULIP. There is
not a single one of them that is scriptural.


                  V.  Perseverance of the Saints


     We now come to the last point, the "perseverance of the
saints," or some give it as "predestination." This time Calvin
hit it right. The word predestination is a Bible term and, even
though he got it wrong both times it occurred, at least he
recognized that the truth was there. For example, the word
"predestination" only occurs two times in your Bible and neither
time is it a reference to an unsaved man. The word
"predestination" occurs two times in your Bible and neither time
is it a reference to a man getting saved. (One more time!) The
word "predestination" occurs two times in your Bible and not a
single time does it ever refer to the destination of an unsaved
man before receiving Christ or the time of conversion of a saved
man when he received Jesus Christ. That is, the term
"predestination," as Calvin found it, he could not apply to the
truth, so we may take the fifth point and throw it out also on
the grounds that Calvin didn't know what he was talking about.
The term "predestination" occurs one time in your Bible in Romans
8:29. Read it. It occurs the next time in Ephesians 1:5. Read it.
Ephesians 1:5 and Romans 8:29. Notice in neither context is
anybody talking about anybody getting saved. The verses where
they occur in both contexts have no reference to an unsaved man
receiving Christ, an unsaved man going to hell or the time of
conversion of a saved man, one of the elect. Calvin simply didn't
know what he was talking about.

     We may say that back in the days of Martin Luther and
Zwingli and Bucer, Calvin was a "precious shining light in his
day" and gave a lot of light where it was needed and, thank God,
he was anti-Catholic in some of his beliefs. That was his
redeeming feature. He was anti-Catholic in some of what he
believed. As far as his treatment of heretics was concerned and
as far as his prophetical teachings were concerned, he was a
Roman Catholic from the bottom of his feet to the top of his
head. The term "predestination" only occurs in regard to a man
who was already saved (Eph. 1:5), where when a man received Jesus
Christ, his destination is to be adopted as a child of God (which
Old Testament saints were not), and when he receives Jesus Chist
he is predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ (which
the Old Testament saints were not).


                           Conclusion


     This completes our brief study of hyper-Calvinism. The
hyper-Calvinist is a heretic, like the hyper-Dispensationalist or
the Campbellite elder or the Roman Catholic priest or the Mormon
or the Seventh-day Adventist. The fact that he has a little more
scripture to quote and a little more biblical "proof" than some
of these heretics means absolutely nothing in the light of the
truth. In the light of the truth, the five points of Calvinism
are a blank. Of the final point one can say that it is true.
Predestination is a doctrine. It is true that the saints will
"persevere" by virtue of the fact that they are in Christ and
Christ makes intercession for them. They are "bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh." But certainly predestination has nothing
to do with the Calvinistic doctrines of that subject as John
Calvin taught them. As John Calvin taught the doctrine of
predestination, he taught a lie. Predestination has nothing to do
with when the unsaved man got saved or whether or not the unsaved
man went to hell. It had to do with what happens to the born
again believer after he has received Jesus Christ. Then his
destination is fixed.

     We appreciate the Huguenots who were a soul-winning,
martyred people who believed the word of God and assimilated some
of Calvin's teaching. We appreciate the great Scotch
Presbyterians who preached the truth and loved the word of God
and did a great work for God and assimilated much of Calvin's
teaching. We appreciate the Puritans' standard of living and
their love of discipline and separation and law and order, even
though they assimilated some of Calvin's teaching. We appreciate
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a great preacher and a great soul winner
whom God mightily used when he was not preaching Calvinistic
doctrines. Anybody who has read the Metropolitan Tabernacle
Pulpit realizes that Charles Haddon Spurgeon didn't waste one
Sunday out of twenty preaching the five points of Calvinism. He
professed to be a Calvinist and may have been a Calvinist, but he
certainly had better sense than to preach it rom the pulpit when
he wanted results. If you take the sermons of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon and lay them out and go through them and mark the ones
that deal with the five points of Calvinism or even the sermons
devoted entirely to one of the five points there will be less
than one out of twenty. Charles Haddon Spurgeon had better sense
than to follow John Calvin more than five percent of the time.
And those of us who believe the word and preach the word have
better sense than to follow him one percent of the time.

     This study has been on TULIP. 1. Total depravity, supposedly
justified by Ephesians 2:1-4, which has nothing to do with the
will, mentioned in Ezra 7:13; 7:15; 7:16, Exodus 35:5; 35:21;
35:29. And since total depravity does not affect responsibility
(John 3:36, Isa. 45:19, Luke 17:1), we take TULIP and put it in
the wastebasket as unscriptural, non-Biblical nonsense. Depravity
may extend to every part of a man's nature, but a man's will is
not a part of his nature, as you would think anybody would know
after a while.

     2. Unconditional election, supposedly justified by Ephesians
1:4 and Romans 9; disproved by 1 Peter 1:2 where it is plainly
said to be conditioned on foreknowledge, as it is also mentioned
in Romans 8:29.

     3. Limited atonement, supposedly justified by John 10:11,
Ephesians 5, and Christ giving his life as a ransom for many.
This is clearly abrogated by the statement that He gave His lie
as a ransom for all, 1 Timothy 2:6; that God wants all men saved,
1 Timothy 2:4; that all should repent, 2 Peter 3:9, and mainly by
the fact that the atonement was for unsaved, hell-bound, Christ-
rejecting false prophets and teachers, 2 Peter 2:1, and for
Christ-rejecting, nonelect Jews, Hebrews 10.

     4. Irresistible grace, supposedly bolstered up by Acts 13:48
and Ephesians 2:1-4; clearly shown to be a boo-boo by Acts 7,
Matthew 32, Matthew 12, Genesis 6 and Romans 9.

     5. Predestination or perseverance (Eph. 1:5), clearly shown
to be applicable only to a man who has already received the Lord
Jesus Christ.

     Nobody in the Old Testament was regenerated. Nobody in the
Old Testament was "granted repentance." Nobody in the Old
Testament was "chosen in Christ." Nobody in the Old Testament
believed the New Testament gospel. Yet there are scores and
scores of saved people throughout the Old Testament who by a free
act of free will obtained salvation by obeying God. Therefore,
the statement that a man has no free will because he has never
been regenerated is just unutterable, inexpressible trash and
should not be taught or mentioned in the same breath with the
holy scriptures written and preserved by a holy God. Calvinism
was an interesting doctrine in its day for philosophical
speculators and theological exegetes, and it has a certain amount
of interest today that, when applied, makes interesting
discussion and subject matter for bull sessions among educated
people. The high Calvinistic doctrine of TULIP, which was never
assimilated by the practical soul winners who were Calvinists,
furnished an interesting example of deep theological speculation
for people who had nothing to do but sit around and talk and
"hear or tell something new"; however, the soul winners who
followed John Calvin never wasted a great deal of time with it.

     We adopt the position of George Whitefield, who said, "A
moderate Calvinism was and is and will always be the best
doctrine for evangelism." A moderate Calvinism. What do we mean
by moderate? We mean total depravity, with the exception that the
will is a free agent. We mean unconditional election, with the
qualification that it is conditioned on foreknowledge. We mean
Calvinism, with the exception that limited atonement is a bunch
of godless, lying trash and shouldn't ever be preached or taught
anywhere. And irresistible grace is a horselaugh, with the
exception that God must be gracious toward man and deal with him.
Finally, perseverance of the saints; we grant this is so after
the man has been born again. That is what is called a moderate
Calvinism.

     We do not subscribe to the complete teaching of Calvin's
total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement or
irresistible grace. We have nothing to do with his doctrine of
baby sprinkling. We have nothing to do with his doctrine of
Amillennialism. And we absolutely abhor and despise and hold as
an abomination the teaching of John Calvin and the Puritans that
the body of Christ was to set up a political theocracy to be run
as a state government. On those lines we completely disagree with
Calvin, as did all the Baptists and Anabaptists of his day. We
take our side with the Baptists of Calvin's day who were
persecuted by Calvin and Zwingli for not subscribing to a church-
state, baby-sprinkling religion.

     In short, we are not "Calvinists." We are proud not to be
Calvinists. And God forbid we should ever be called "Calvinists."
We are Bible-believing Christians, or, if you please, Bible-
believing Baptists if you want to know what kind of Christian.
And if you want to know what kind of Baptists, we are not
Southern Baptists or Northern Baptists. We are Bible-believing
Baptists. We are what the Baptist Examiner professes to be. We
are what the hardshells profess to be and are not. In short, we
are people who believe the Book from cover to cover. And where
the teaching of Machen, Dabney, Kuiper, Gill, Tolley, the
Puritans, Warfield, Berkhof and Arthur W. Pink contradict the
word of God, we dispose of them immediately, cheerfully, with
love and best wishes. And this is the position that any Bible-
believer should take. Let God be true, but every man a liar. And
where the man crosses the scripture, cross him. Or, to quote a
great soul-winning evangelist who didn't preach any of TULIP,
"Where the scholars say one thing and the Bible says another, the
scholars can go plumb to the devil." The man who made that
statement led more than a million people to Jesus Christ. He was
Billy Sunday, and alongside him we don't figure John Calvin to be
in the running.

     May the Lord bless you and we hope this file has been
edifying and we hope it will exhort and rebuke the brethren as
well as educate and edify and inspire; we trust that those who
read it will understand that all scripture is profitable, not
only for doctrine but for reproof, correction and instruction in
righteousness. May the Lord bless you and good day.