PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
This is M Street. The weekly podcast of Mercy Street Reformed Church in Denver, Colorado to find out more about Mercy Street Reformed Church, like when we meet for weekly Bible studies as well as our Sunday Services visit Mercy Street reform. Org. That’s Mercy Street reformed. Org.
Welcome back to M Street. This is Pastor Chris Moulton. And I want to thank you again for listening. We’ve now reached over 1,000 downloads which may not sound like much to some but I’m thankful to the Lord for that blessing will also praying that according to his will it might increase all the more not merely for number sake but so that his truth sent out through this medium might be a blessing to many. I also want to mention that there won’t be a typical advertisement for auto Fire Guard this time speaking of that. It’s not that M Street is really sponsored by afg firepro., It’s just that that’s a side business that my wife and my wife and I are attempting to run in order to help support our work here in Denver. It is a good product that really does offer a viable way to put out a fire. That’s why we try to sell them. Anyway, that’s as much advertising is I’ll do this episode other than to say if you haven’t already done, so please check out afg fire Pro. Com.
All right. So this is certainly the time of year where in there are a lot of colored and sometimes not so colored lights plugged in drive through a neighborhood drive by certain buildings, maybe even in your own home. And there they are they’re plugged in there lit up. Now. I know that what I’m about to say is basic electricity 101 but typical house at least in the US has electricity running to it by a power lines that are connected to a power plant of some kind at the same time. There are plugs or Outlets that more or less contain that electrical power so that once a device that operates on electricity is plugged into one of those receptacles will then it works in the case of Lights it lights up as long as a lamp or string of lights remain unplugged. Of course unless they’re the kind that runs on batteries or solar power will then they remain unlit or dark.
Welcome back to that in just a minute. But now because each one of these episodes follows a certain order which is the same basic order followed by the Heidelberg Catechism. Let’s briefly consider what we’ve gone over so far in M Street as well as an introduction to what’s next again just to have some order to all of this after first going over what a person’s only comfort in life and death truly is from about episode 2 till about episode 6 we heard about who we are as miserable sinners in the next few episodes we heard about who it is that can change or cover over or who provides a way of escape from that sin and misery namely Jesus Christ and now in this 14th episode and probably in the next couple of episodes as well will focus our attention on how it is that he provides that way of Escape how it is that God has ordained salvation to work or become effectual and alive,
Of those who are truly saved and so again that’s more or less where we’ve been and as far as this episode in the next few or concerned, that’s where we’re going. All right. Now I think with me again about the lights and their need to be plugged in in order for them to do what they’re meant to do which is light up and along with that think of us miserable Sinners that we are including myself is being like those lights who are left in the dark not operating as we were originally created to operate which is as those living in a loving relationship with our Creator God as long as we remain unplugged or unattached to God.
In John’s gospel chapter 3 verse 19. We read Jesus words to Nicodemus where he said and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world and Men loved Darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
Now who are those men who are those people that love darkness and Tuesdays are evil. It’s us it’s you and me is every other person ever born into this world except one. And that one is Jesus Christ. His deeds were never evil neither was he ever in darkness? And neither was he ever Darkness himself, but he said he always was he always will be light the kind of like that reveal to us the love of God In His glory even as our first parents Adam and Eve new and experienced before falling into sin.
Then because of that fall into sin and because we are all Naturally Speaking In Adam inheriting from him the same kind of sinful nature that he had plus and having him as our head or the federal representative of us as human beings. Are we all naturally love darkness? And it’s as Jesus said that is our condemnation namely that we love sin and hate God.
Now in considering what we’ve been hearing in our previous episodes and in particular how it is that Jesus Christ the second Adam The One and Only God man is also the one who has restored to sinful mankind. What was lost in the first Adam or is opened the way for Sinners to have their sins forgiven and themselves reconciled back into God’s favor. The question naturally then arises are all men are all sinners then saved by Christ as they have perished in a dim and other words does the bible teach a universal Redemption an all-encompassing atonement? Whereby everyone that was lost in the first atom are now restored saved in Jesus Christ.
Being a former PE teacher and Coach. I know something of the value of physical exercise and so I tried a somewhat frequently workout at a local gym. When I go there so many times and other guy who works out there and in talking with him a few times, he’s told me that he believes that everyone and I do mean everyone for him. Even the fallen angels and Satan himself will one day be safe. And the reason why he says he knows that is because scripture teaches that Christ died for all
What’s up, in one sense? He’s right scripture does say the words that Christ died for all infect and 2nd Corinthians 5 14 and 15. We read for the love of God compels us because we judged us that if one died for all then all died and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again,
We’re also told in Romans 5:18. Therefore as through one man’s offense and that one man, there would be the first atom judgment came to all men resulting in condemnation even so through one man’s righteous act and there that one man would be Jesus Christ the second Adam the free gift came to all men resulting in justification of life until those in other passages like them might lead someone to think that God is teaching us that yes all people universally speaking or saved or Justified are reconciled to God but
What the man at the gym and others like him fail to exercise is their use of the whole of scripture, which also says this in Matthew 25 when the son of man comes in his glory and all the Holy Angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them one from another as a Shepherd divides his sheep from the goats and he will set the sheep on his right hand. But the goats on the left then the king will say to those on his right hand come you blessed of my father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world and then a little further in that passage. Then he will also say to those on the left hand depart from me you cursed into the Everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
And these will go away into Everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
There’s also what we’re told and John 3, except a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God and he that does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.
So those in other passages like them make it clear that not everyone is Justified not everyone is saved not everyone is reconciled back to God, but only those who live by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
What about those verses that make it sound like all will be saved or that there is such a thing as universal Redemption. Well, we need to understand that the little word all doesn’t necessarily mean all of mankind but instead that it can mean sometimes does mean people from All Nations as opposed to just the Jews as it was primarily in the Old Testament dispensation, or it can also mean all of God’s chosen ones even all that. He chose from before the foundation of the world as we just heard from Matthew 25.
Let’s go back to that analogy. I use earlier about us being like lights that are unlit in the dark as it were unless and until we are plugged into the receptacle at which time we’re giving the ability to do what we were originally made to do to live as lights in the world and power to do so by God. That’s of course an analogy that I thought of but the biblical analogy that used in both John’s gospel and enrollments and it’s also referred to in the answer given to the question in the Heidelberg Catechism concerning whether or not everyone is saved by Christ.
Is that of being like branches of a rotten dying Vine better than taken by a gracious husbandman or farmer and grafted into the stem of a living and vibrant Vine or tree causing us to have a fruitful life filled with what’s good and right listen to Howard George Bethune commented on that analogy used by John in the Apostle Paul, when he wrote these words by Nature. We are branches of a condemned and pernicious Vine bearing only evil fruit and soon to be cast Into the Fire of ourselves. We cannot separate from the accursed stem much less make ourselves part of the Living Vine Jesus Christ.
God by his holy spirit takes us Cuts us off from the ruined Vine and graphs us into the stem of Christ. The vital Union is then formed a new life flows into the grafted branch and it blossoms buds puts forth leaves and yields good fruit not from itself, but by virtue of the life it derives from the stem Christ is still the vine. The fruit is also all his but he makes the once wildbranch part of himself.
And so makes it fruitful and himself fruitful is not a great way of stating it. We all need to be United to we all need to be grafted into Jesus Christ to be plugged in to him if you will and yet we all love darkness, which means we don’t want what we need. We don’t love what we need. What we do what we do want is to remain in our sin. But because God has chosen again from before the foundation of the world to graciously and mercifully take some out of that darkness and bring them into His Marvelous Light into Christ grafting them into him.
He ever so Sovereign Lee does what he is determined to do.
Not from our standpoint. It does appear as though we make that choice based on our knowing that were Sinners based on our knowing that we need to save your face. Tonda are knowing that we that the only true savior is Jesus Christ while in actuality, it’s God that works that in us that same Saving Face to believe to know to trust in all of those things. And so knowing that we then give all the glory to whom
What we give it to God alone for his Amazing Grace which saves wretched sinners like you and me through faith.
Lord willing will continue to hear more about that same Saving Face next time and until then may the mercy that God bestows on sinners like myself be yours.
Thank you again for listening to M Street. If you would like to know more about Mercy Street Reformed Church in Denver Colorado. If you’d like to know more about the Reformed Church in the United States visit Mercy Street reformed. Org, that’s Mercy Street reformed. Org.