“God so loved the world, (not just the elect!) that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever (of the elect?) believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”  Hmm.  He that believeth on him not he that was elect, or he that by irresistible grace was made to believe.  You see, part of the Calvinist teaching is irresistible grace.  “You’re going to believe whether you want to or not.  You’ve been chosen to believe.  I’m going to make you a believer.  Or I’m going to damn you just because I feel like it.”  Before any of us were born.  Before any of us had a thought.  Before any of us ever experienced the Adamic nature, some were damned to hell by God because He could.  That’s their doctrine.  But in John 3:16, the world, through Him, was to be saved.  In John 1:27, John the Baptist was being asked if he was the Messiah, the one that was supposed to come, and he said, “It’s not me.  He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.  The next day,” verse 29 says, “John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (not just the sins of the elect), amen?

Romans 3:21-22 makes it very clear; there’s a righteousness that’s without the law that’s available to men now.  It’s not by works.  Jesus came and did not destroy but fulfilled the law.  And through our faith and trust in Him, having appeased God through fulfilling the law, has by grace (unmerited favor) given to us justification by faith in Him and His finished work.  The twentieth verse says it this way, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified. By the law is the knowledge of sin.  But now the righteousness of God without the law has been manifest.  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus.”  Now, if this thing is irresistible, if this thing is predetermined from before the foundations of the world, why any need of faith?  What is faith?  Faith is the substance of things hoped for.  What do you hope?  How do you hope when you don’t even know what you’re hoping for?  This is a salvation that was already determined from before the foundations of the world.  Theirs is a salvation that God in His sovereignty forces upon certain individuals and withholds from other individuals.  What does faith have to do with anything?  And where does faith come from?  Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.  Faith comes by the promises of the Word of God.  Salvation comes by believing what the Word has said Jesus accomplished on our behalf; amen?  It is not arbitrary.

Calvinists will agree they are depraved but say, since they’re depraved, they have no ability to believe.  The Scripture’s very clear.  How we, are under the power of sin, under the power of Satan.  “There is none righteous, no, not one… there is none,” verse 11, “that seeketh after God.  They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”  Amen?  All humanity is in the same place.  Separate from God.  Depraved, meaning we have no ability to save ourselves.  Calvin says we not only have no ability to save ourselves, there’s not even within man the capability of responding to the free gift.  What they say is through irresistible grace you have to become regenerated, saved, before you can believe.  Well, where do you find that anyplace in the Scriptures?  We just saw what causes men to believe.  It’s the gospel.  It’s the message of Jesus having become the propitiation for our sins.  Freely, the Lamb who died for the sins of the whole world.