Jesus said to them, I’m the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe all of the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out where I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me that I should lose nothing, all that He has given me, but raise it on the last day. for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in Him should have eternal life, and that will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that has come down from heaven. They said, Is not this Jesus, the son Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered him, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they will be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me, not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly I say to you that whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.
John 6:34-48
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Hello, welcome back to the How shall we live podcast. I’m your host Amanda C Bowers, and today’s podcast, I want to just share a little bit of what was on my heart today, after reading a couple of different posts on Facebook, and in some of the news lately. With regard to the sovereignty of God, and specifically the sovereignty of God and salvation. Now I don’t want to get into a big theological talk and use a lot of big theological terms I just want to share kind of what’s on my heart here and just challenge you to think about it, because in the house I we live podcast, I think, in order to answer the question, How shall we live we have to first start with a foundation that has arrived view of God, and has a right view of the scriptures. And I’ve said before, when I shared my testimony that I don’t have it all figured out and I’m certainly no expert but these are my thoughts today and I think that they’re worth talking about, in terms of what we see happening in our world because all of us, if we love the Lord and we love His Word, we want to see our country turn back to God we want to see people become godly again we want to see families restored we want to see babies saved from the abortion, we want to see. Marriages lasting, you know, for a lifetime. We want to see children rescued from abuse, and I mean if we love God, we’re gonna love the truth and righteousness and we want to see these things but sometimes we feel helpless we feel like, what can we do we try to vote in the right person and then they turn out to be just not what they say they are. We have to pick and choose between leaders who are what we call quote unquote lesser of two evils which is, that’s a topic for another day too. There’s no such thing. And we just feel really sometimes I think hopeless, that we will ever see any thing improve in our country. And I really believe as I’ve thought and thought and thought about this and seeing these things happen and the Lord is begin to work in my heart to just bring me further and further away from the world and more and more close to him more and more close to his word, that the problem does lie in where we strayed in the church when it comes to the doctrine of salvation. So let me just read this post that I put up on Facebook and then we’ll talk a little bit more about it. Imagine if every believer believed that God had the power to save and begged him to save their loved ones instead of insisting that man has the power to convince people to be saved, imagine what might happen. What if we suffer in America from these humanistic atheistic citizens because Christians stopped believing that it’s God who has the one who saves. What if we suffer in America because we’ve embraced Arminianism or semi Pelagianism which those are two theological terms that essentially say that God and man cooperate with one another, in, in the salvation of man, and we stopped believing God and His Word are the power unto salvation. What if that’s why we suffer in America. What if we suffer in America because we stopped going to church on Sundays, and we stopped storming the gates of hell in prayer meetings for lost loved ones, and for our enemies. What if you’re politicians and the choices you’re getting are a direct result of your unbelief in God’s power. It’s time to repent, church. So that was my post on Facebook. And I want to talk a little more about that in detail what is that, what am I talking about why am I talking about this. I read to you in the beginning of this podcast from John chapter six where Jesus says that no one can come to Him unless the Father draws him but that all who do come to him will be saved, you know a lot of times people focusing on the no one can come to me and they don’t see the rest of the beautiful part of that passage but let’s read that again, John six verse 44 says no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day I mean that is a beautiful promise. That is not an arm I do it, or the Father will draw him and then he has to accept my offer of salvation and then when he accepts it, then he’ll be saved. Or I’m gonna, the father is gonna throw out, this is what I heard a lot of times when I was in more semi Palladian Church, the gift of eternal life is a gift so God throws out this gift to you he is offering you this gift but it’s up to you to accept the gift you have to take the gift in order to receive the gift, but that’s not what Jesus says. Jesus says,
05:02
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him and then he says, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God, for he has seen the Father. Truly, truly I say to you who ever believes has eternal life. And the bread of life. I mean, those words are so comforting and so beautiful. There’s no exception clause there that says, well, the father is going to draw you but you have to accept my gift. It doesn’t say that it says no one comes unless the Father draws them and when the Father draws them, I will raise them up, it’s just, it’s just, it’s done. If you don’t believe in the kind of God who can save your loved ones. Why do you pray and ask God to save your loved ones. If you don’t believe that God will turn their hearts away from evil and change them and give them a new heart and make them born again and bring them into a place of loving him instead of hating him if you don’t think he has the power to do that. Why do you ask him to do it.
06:36
This is This is what I want, I’m thinking about and I just want to challenge you to think, how shall we live in this world. We should live, as believers who believe in the power of God in His Word to save
06:55
man, not to believe in the persuasiveness of my speech, not to believe that, well, if only we could get the Bible back in school, not to believe if we could only get the right politician. If we could only get the right laws pass, if we get all of those things are fruits. People loved ones, friends, those are fruits, godly leaders are fruits from a godly heart godly schools and godly communities are fruits that are born out of people who have been born again. The reason the culture was godly before and now it’s not as because there were more people who were born again and now they’re not, because we’ve lost the belief that God saves, somewhere along the way in America we stopped believing that God’s word, and that God had the power to save our loved ones and so we stopped sharing the gospel with them. We stopped going to church, we stopped going to prayer meetings and praying for people to be saved because we didn’t think God had the power to do it anymore. Somewhere along the way we embrace the idea that what we could present it, but really, you know, it was up to that person to make the decision. We started talking about salvation in terms of deciding and opening up your heart and accepting Jesus into your heart, and giving your life to the Lord and we just put everything on man, as if God is this helpless. God in heaven pleading and begging for men to please please please believe him. I want to read you something I wrote down in the back of my Bible, several months ago, listening to a sermon. If your theology course theology means the study of God or the knowledge of God, your pure theology exalts man in any way. It is an error. Every aspect of the faith is about God and not man, your redemption is about God and God’s power to save. This one’s gonna step on some toes, your baptism. It is God’s promise. It is a sign of the promise of God’s salvation and T. It is not your work that you do in obedience to God. It is an outward symbol, signifying the work that God has done in you a turn internally, your sanctification. Yes, we have a duty and sanctification, we’re not passive. But God is the one who works into wheels and wills in us to do good. God is the one who draws us into himself God is the one who brings us back, And ultimately, your salvation rests upon God. All of man’s redemption salvation sanctification. It’s all of God. And so I just want to challenge you, Brothers and sisters, to get a doctrine about God and salvation, that is biblical. And then to storm the gates of hell for our country. Why mean by storm the gates of hell of our country. I mean, pray and pray fervently as if you actually believe that God has the power to change the hearts of men and women, because he does, we must repent of thinking that we need to just change the message, or make it more palatable, Or maybe we just think the person is hopeless, maybe we just think there is no help for America, that God’s coming to bring his judgment I mean I know this is a temptation and I fall into it myself. God’s bringing judgment, we’ve gone too far. It’s too late. We’re Sodom and Gomorrah he’s gonna rain down fire on us. It’s over, You might as well just get your family together, hunker down and wait for the end. Is that what Abraham did, when, when God said He was going to write down fire. How many times did he say, oh, Lord God, if there’s one righteous person would you save this nation if there’s 10 If there’s 50 God, would you please hold back.
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What if God is bringing judgment on America to wake, America’s church up so that we would repent of thinking that we had to help him save people. And what if we just obeyed him and went to Him in prayer, and said, God, please save my country. What if we kept coming together as believers and praying day after day or week after week after week for people that we love and for our enemies. And we did it like the persistent we don’t want we just quit. We do not quit knocking on the door of heaven, pleading with God to save our country, pleading with God to save our mom or dad or sister our brother, our wayward son or daughter. And then believing that he can and will do that. Because he’s powerful, and he’s able. So this idea that God doesn’t quote unquote force himself on people, that’s what people who don’t like the idea of election will say, Well, God is not going to force someone to choose him. What really, why do you pray for him to save them then. It’s not force. He comes to you by the power of the Holy Spirit, changes your heart makes you born again and then you’re not forced, you want to. It’s a gift. He gives you the gift of a new heart, so that you want to worship Him. And you don’t want to sin against Him. And isn’t that what we want, we want people to want God. We want people to want to follow God. But we have to stop this idea that, well, God’s gonna offer it to him, but it’s really gonna be up to them. And I’m gonna close out here with this. Whenever I hear that I want to ask the person who’s a Christian, and so I asked you this, when you stand before God on judgment day. And he welcomes you into the kingdom of God. Are you going to say to him, I am so thankful that you and I work together to get me here. I’m so glad you offered your gift of salvation to me but boy, I’m glad I accepted it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Because, sisters, if we think that if we think that salvation is a gift that’s offered and the other person has to accept it that it’s up to them, then we say that salvation belongs to both God and man we put a condition upon the salvation of man that it is upon Him. Jesus never said accept this gift he said, Repent, and believe and you will be saved. And he said here that anyone who believes will be saved. But he says prior to that, that the man that the Father has a draw that person. Now we can’t make God draw people, we can’t do any of those things but we are told to pray, we are told to believe. So I think our duty, how shall we live in this country I think the number one thing right now is we have to live in repentance. We have to repent, as an American Church of believing that it’s somehow our method or our mottos or the kind of music that we have or whether we have a coffee shop, or, or whether we don’t, or anything whether we believe in having this big rock concert church or whether we believe in, you know, as I do a more simplistic regulative principle of worship boards the Word of God and and preaching, and singing of hymns. We still have to believe that it’s God and His Word. So if there’s no word, Then there’s not going to be salvation, but it’s not man it’s not on man, it’s on God and His Word to save and as we will be faithful to His word, it’s up to him whether he says or he doesn’t, but if we would really embrace the idea that God has the power to save people, and not stop praying until he does perhaps we would see some great revival in our country, maybe not. There’s not a guarantee because God is sovereign. But surely if we don’t believe that he will save. If we don’t believe that it’s all of him and his power, then we cannot expect anything he tells us in the Book of James that anybody who’s double minded should not expect, expect to have their prayers answered. So if we, if we go to prayer asking God to save our loved ones but we get up and we say, but we know really, it’s up to them. Then we should expect God to answer that prayer, because we’ve essentially told God we don’t really think you have any power to save them because ultimately it’s up to them.
16:38
Because that’s what my thoughts are today. I just want us to think about that. I want us to, as we endeavor to bring about truth in our nation as we endeavor to bring about the Word of God to the people, loved ones, let’s do it with a believing power, let’s believe God let’s believe him when he says, Anyone, anyone who believes in him will be saved. Whoever believes has eternal life. But let us not be so foolish as to believe that the whoever depends upon the person. Let us go boldly before the Lord before the throne. And let us plead with God. To overwhelm our fellow citizens with His mercy and His grace. Let us ask him to send a great repentance to our people, that they might be reminded of the terror of God’s judgment, and that their hearts might be softened and turned back to God, and that they might be given a new heart, that they could believe and want to follow God. Let us repent of this foolish notion that God stands offering salvation, just praying and hoping that man will somehow believe. Let’s return to believing in the God who saves. And the God who says, No one can come unless the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. Let us believe in the Jesus Christ who promises not I’m not. Not all think about it. I will raise up the one who believes. Let us believe that for ourselves and let us believe that for our loved ones, and let us even believe that and pray it for our enemies, that God has the power to save, even the most wretched of sinners. As Paul said, I am chief sinner. If God can save him if God can save me. If God can save you. God can save anyone. And if he chooses to save them. They can’t stop him. So let’s pray and thank him for his great salvation. Hope you have a great day.
19:23
Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai