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Providence in Conversion (Part 6) · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Last time we spoke about the providence of God over
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  Speaker 1: human action or human willing, including sinful human willing. Let's
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  Speaker 1: zero in on the most significant involvement of God and
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  Speaker 1: his omnipotent providence in willing, namely.
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  Speaker 2: Our conversion.
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  Speaker 1: How is God involved in the conversion of sinners out.
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  Speaker 2: Of unbelief into belief?
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  Speaker 1: The reason he must be so involved is because our
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  Speaker 1: condition is so helpless.
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  Speaker 2: Let me show you what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: Romans 8, 6 through 9, For the mind set on
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  Speaker 1: the flesh is death, but the mind set on the
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  Speaker 1: spirit is life and peace. Because The mindset on the
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  Speaker 1: flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject
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  Speaker 1: itself to the law of God.
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  Speaker 2: For it is not even able to do so. Note that.
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  Speaker 1: And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However,
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  Speaker 1: you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit,
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  Speaker 1: if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. So
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  Speaker 1: there are two kinds of people. Those who are in
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  Speaker 1: the flesh and those who are in the spirit. Those
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  Speaker 1: who are in bondage to unbelief and merely natural forces
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  Speaker 1: and those who've been invaded by the spirit. And what's
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  Speaker 1: true about this person, us before Christ, we can't please God.
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  Speaker 1: We can't submit to God.
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  Speaker 2: Cannot. Here it is again in 1 Corinthians 2.14. A
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  Speaker 2: natural man.
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  Speaker 1: Does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,
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  Speaker 1: for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, apart from divine help, we cannot understand
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  Speaker 1: the things of the Spirit and recognize the beauty and
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  Speaker 1: truth of Christ and be saved.
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  Speaker 3: 2 Corinthians 4.4 In their case, the God of this
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  Speaker 3: world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them
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  Speaker 3: from seeing the light.
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  Speaker 2: Of the gospel of the glory of Christ. We can't
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  Speaker 2: see it. Satan and sin are blinding us.
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  Speaker 1: Ephesians 2.4 God being rich in mercy because of the
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  Speaker 1: great love with which he loved us even when we
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  Speaker 1: were dead in our trespasses. So we're dead and we're
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  Speaker 1: blind and we have an inability. Is there any wonder
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  Speaker 1: why we need to address the omnipotent, governing, sustaining, all-ordering
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  Speaker 1: providence of God in relation to conversion? What's God's remedy
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  Speaker 1: for our hopeless, helpless, unable condition? And His remedy is
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  Speaker 1: described in many ways. I think I jotted down eight here.
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  Speaker 1: Let me just tick them off and you can think
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  Speaker 1: about them more fully later.
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  Speaker 2: First, he makes us alive.
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  Speaker 1: Ephesians 2.5, even when we were dead in our trespasses,
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  Speaker 1: he made us alive together with Christ. By grace you
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  Speaker 1: have been saved. So he comes to us in our
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  Speaker 1: deadness and he makes us alive. Now let me put
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  Speaker 1: a parenthesis in here. and address a theological issue. It's
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  Speaker 1: a little bit sophisticated, but some of you will want
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  Speaker 1: to know what I think about this. There is another
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  Speaker 1: view besides the one that I'm presenting here that says, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we all agree we're dead and we're unable to believe,
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  Speaker 1: but God for everybody exerts a grace and that grace
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  Speaker 1: doesn't bring us into salvation. It brings us to the
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  Speaker 1: point where we can choose to believe, so it brings
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  Speaker 1: us to a kind of point where we're not in
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  Speaker 1: bondage to sin, we're not enslaved to Christ, we are
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  Speaker 1: in a middle place where our own self-determining, finally, in
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  Speaker 1: the moment of conversion, decisive freedom, our self-determination, can choose
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  Speaker 1: to believe or choose not to believe. That won't work
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  Speaker 1: in this text. It won't work in most of these
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  Speaker 1: texts I'm going to refer to.
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  Speaker 2: Let me read it again. We were dead and he.
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  Speaker 1: Made us alive, not alive into some neutral position, but
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  Speaker 1: alive together with Christ. Or secondly, he made us alive
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  Speaker 1: together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. So
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  Speaker 1: the description of that God makes us alive is not
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  Speaker 1: some kind of middle point of halfway life where we
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  Speaker 1: are somehow not controlled by sin, not controlled by Christ.
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  Speaker 1: That doesn't exist in this text. It doesn't exist in
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  Speaker 1: the universe. We are dead and blind and helpless and
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  Speaker 1: God brings us to saving life. Here's the second one.
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  Speaker 1: The first one was makes us alive. Second one, description
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  Speaker 1: of how God's providence works for us He grants us
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  Speaker 1: the gift of faith. Chapter 2, verse 8 of Ephesians.
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  Speaker 1: For by grace you have been saved through faith. This
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  Speaker 1: is not your own doing. It is the gift of God.
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  Speaker 1: God gives the gift of faith. He doesn't give the
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  Speaker 1: gift of ability for you to produce.
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  Speaker 2: Your own faith.
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  Speaker 1: Third, new life is granted in new birth. 1 John 5,
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  Speaker 1: verse 1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has
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  Speaker 1: been born of God. The evidence that you were born
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  Speaker 1: of God, brought from death to life, is that you believe.
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  Speaker 1: Number four, he replaces blindness with glory shining in our hearts.
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  Speaker 1: Second Corinthians 4, 6, God who said, let light shine
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  Speaker 1: out of darkness at the beginning of creation, does it
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  Speaker 1: again every time we're saved. He has shown in our
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  Speaker 1: hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
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  Speaker 1: glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Fifth,
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  Speaker 1: he gives us to Jesus. God gives us to Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: John 6, 37, all that the father gives me will
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  Speaker 1: come to me. Every single person who comes to Jesus
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  Speaker 1: has been given to Jesus by the Father. Or a
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  Speaker 1: sixth way of saying it, God appoints us to believe,
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  Speaker 1: Acts 13, 48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they
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  Speaker 1: began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And
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  Speaker 1: as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.
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  Speaker 1: We believe if we've been appointed to believe. Number seven,
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  Speaker 1: he opens our hearts to give heed. Acts 16, 14.
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  Speaker 1: A certain woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira,
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  Speaker 1: a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was
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  Speaker 1: listening and the Lord opened her heart to give heed
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  Speaker 1: to the things Paul had spoken. And she becomes the
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  Speaker 1: first convert in Philippi. And number eight, lastly, God grants repentance,
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  Speaker 1: 2 Timothy 2, 24 and 25. The Lord's bondservant must
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  Speaker 1: not be quarrelsome, but kind to all, able to teach,
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  Speaker 1: patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition.
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  Speaker 1: If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to a
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the truth.
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  Speaker 2: And they may.
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  Speaker 1: Come to their senses and escape from the snare of
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  Speaker 1: the devil having been taken captive by him to do
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  Speaker 1: his will. God grants as a gift repentance. So what
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  Speaker 1: we've seen is that God's providence, his sustaining, governing, Ordering
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  Speaker 1: of all things is essential if anybody is going to
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  Speaker 1: be converted. Now, next time we will tackle the problem
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  Speaker 1: that is signaled by the wording of 2 Timothy 2,
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  Speaker 1: 24 and 25, because it talks about God giving repentance.
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  Speaker 2: Leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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  Speaker 1: And there's a problem text that lots of people go
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  Speaker 1: to when they're trying to understand this where it says
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  Speaker 1: God desires all to be saved and come to a
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  Speaker 1: knowledge of the truth.
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  Speaker 2: Does that fit with what we've just seen? That's where
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  Speaker 2: we go next time.