Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / If I’m Not Elect, How Am I Guilty for Not Believing?

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If I’m Not Elect, How Am I Guilty for Not Believing? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. As you page through the new APJ book,
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  you'll see some of the ways we talked about election and predestination over the years.
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  The fallout of this doctrine of God's sovereignty over who is saved in the
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  end that leads to many many questions about whether this is fair or unfair,
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  and whether election excuses the non elect from their unbelief. You'll see those themes
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  compiled on pages three fifty five to three sixty four. We're right back into
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  this theme today in an email question from a listener named John Hellow Pastor John,
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  I've often heard it non believers blaming God for not electing them and giving
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  them a new heart to have faith. How can I persuade them that it
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  is not God's fault but their own unbelief. My friend's son professed to be
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  a Christian and even evangelized people and led people to God, but later,
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  while in college, he realized he was not a true believer and left the
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  faith. He now blames God for not electing him. How would you counsel
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  this young man? Well, let me clarify immediately that I do agree with
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  the premise that there is such a thing as unconditional election by God, namely
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  that everyone whom God decisively saves that brings out of darkness to light, brings
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  out of the bondage of sin and unbelief. He does not decide to do
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  that on the spur of the moment, as though there were no plan,
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  but rather he saves in accordance with his infinite wisdom and plan, which He
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  has had in mind forever. So if he's In's one four says, God
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  chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, So when He saved
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  me, he saved me according to an electing plan. Question being asked is
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  why people whom God does not save according to his purpose and plan are nevertheless
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  accountable. That is, they are not able to relieve themselves of responsibility to
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  believe and trust God because God has not planned to save them. Now,
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  I think a helpful place to begin in talking about the accountability of people to
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  embrace and treasure the truth of God that they have access to is to distinguish
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  two kinds of inability, Because the kind of objection we're dealing with here is
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  that someone is saying, I am required to believe, but I don't have
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  the ability to believe, and not having the ability to believe means I'm not
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  responsible to believe. So these two kinds of inability that I'm talking about are
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  more moral inability and physical inability. Physical inability is when you're required to do
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  something but you do not have the physical ability to do it. For example,
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  you're chained to a pillar in a burning house, and you're commanded to
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  realize there's a fire and to get out, but the chains physically keep you
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  from moving, so that in that case we would say that you are not
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  accountable for remaining in the house. You may have wanted with every will in
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  you to move and get out, but you were physically unable. But there's
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  another kind of inability, which we call moral inability. You're not physically limited
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  or restrained, but you're moral preferences what you experience as good and bad,
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  pleasing and displeasing, desirable and undesirable, are so strong in one direction that
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  you may be unable to act contrary to those preferences. So this time,
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  you may be in the burning house and you are not physically restrained at all,
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  but you love you love what you're doing in this house at this moment.
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  You love it so much, you prefer it so much, you desire
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  it so much, you find it so pleasing that you will not even believe
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  every credible testimony that the house is on fire and you must get out and
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  you die. So you are physically free, but you are morally bound.
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  You are in bondage to act according to those overpowering desires and and die.
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  Now, I think the Bible teaches that if you are not free in the
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  physical sense, you are not responsible to act according to the truth. You
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  are physically unable to see or do Romans one eighteen to twenty three. If
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  we had time to talk about it, I'll let you look it up.
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  But if you are not free in the moral sense, because your desires are
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  so corrupt and so contrary to truth, you are nevertheless responsible to act according
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  to the truth Romans two four and five. Responsibility to forsake sin and trust
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  Christ is not nullified because of our sinful desires, because they're so strong that
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  we are morally unable to turn away from sin. In election, God freely
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  chose, graciously chose to set people free from this bondage of moral inability,
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  to set people free from loving evil so much that they are morally unable to
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  choose the good. None of us would be saved if God had not done
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  this for us. The final and decisive answer to why I or you believed
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  in Jesus and were set free from our bondage to the love of self and
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  sin is the sovereign grace of God. As the apostle Paul said, God
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  made us alive when we were dead Ephesians two five. God granted us to
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  believe Philippians one twenty nine. God overcame our heartness against him Ephesians four eighteen.
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  God gave us the ability to see the glory of Christ and the true
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  and desirable Christ hanging on the cross Tewod Corinthians four six. He does this
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  for millions of people, and it is owing to nothing. In us.
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  It is free. And God has his wise and holy reasons for why he
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  does not overcome the rebellion of everyone. And the fact that God does,
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  in his mercy and the freedom of his grace, overcome the sinful corruption and
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  rebellion and resistance of many does not mean he's obliged to do it for anybody.
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  Nobody deserves it, and nobody has a right to complain if he does
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  not do it for them. So let's imagine a person coming to me as
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  a pastor and saying, to me, Pastor, I believe that God has
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  not loved me, he has not set me free from my sin and my
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  unbelief, because I am not elect, and therefore I believe God is to
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  be blamed. He's guilty of evil. And I would say to him,
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  how do you know that you are not among the elect? Now? Perhaps
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  he would say, because he hasn't taken away my rebellion, to which I
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  would say, but that does not prove you're not elect, because he might
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  take away that rebellion in the next hour or the next day or year.
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  So really, how do you know that you are not elect? Well,
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  he might say, maybe I don't know for sure I'm not elected. But
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  if I'm not elect, then I'm not responsible to believe, to which I
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  would say, why don't you believe and receive Jesus right now? You can't
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  say it's because you're not elect. You don't know that, and you can't
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  know that ever till the day you die. You can never say with any
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  authority I'm not elect. You don't know, but you can know that you
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  are elect because only the elect received Jesus. So tell me, right now,
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  why don't you believe and so prove that you are elect? Now.
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  I don't know what he's going to say at this point. He might be
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  honest and say because I don't find him very attractive, I don't find Jesus
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  compelling, or I don't find his way of life that he requires of me
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  to be desirable, or I don't like Christians, or I don't think the
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  Bible is true. And I will say that's right, that's right. And
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  if those are your last words, they will be your condemnation at the last
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  day, not the fact that you are not elect. That fact will not
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  enter into your judgment at all. You were presented with Christ, the most
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  valuable, beautiful person in the universe, and you did not find him to
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  be true or desirable. That will be the case against you at the last
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  day. You cannot use non election as an excuse for loving the dark more
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  than the light. You will be self condemned. Sobering, thank you Bestor
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  John, and thanks for joining us today. If you have a question to
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  ask Pastor John, email us and ask Pastor John at Desiring Good dot org.
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  I'm your host Tony Rink. We'll see Monday.