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here. A refectual call. Those whom God has predestinated 
unto life, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually 
to call by His Word and Spirit out of that state of sin and 
death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus 
Christ. enlightening their minds spiritually 
and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their 
heart of stone and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing 
their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that 
which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, 
yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace. 
This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, 
not from anything at all foreseen in man, nor from any power or 
agency in the creature, being wholly passive therein, being 
dead in sins and trespasses until being quickened and renewed by 
the Holy Spirit. He is thereby enabled to answer 
this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in 
it, and that by no less power than that which raised up Christ 
from the dead. Elect infants dying in infancy 
are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who 
worketh when and where and how He pleases. So also are all elect 
persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the 
ministry of the Word. others not elected, although 
they may be called by the ministry of the word and may have some 
common operations of the spirit, yet not being effectually drawn 
by the father, they neither will nor can truly come to Christ 
and therefore cannot be saved. Much less can men that receive 
not the Christian religion be saved, be they never so diligent 
to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the 
law of that religion that they do profess. So this chapter here, 
if you've been tracking with the confession as we've gone 
through now, I know it takes place over a long time, but we 
understand how the confession is working. It deals with the 
sovereignty of God. that God is sovereign over all things, 
God has decreed all things, but yet it also, and that includes 
the will of man, God is sovereign over the will of man, but yet 
the confession has really taught that and showed us how that God's 
sovereignty, he exercises his sovereignty without violating 
the will of the creature, that God does not coerce the will 
of the creature. Chapter three, paragraph one 
says that, that nor is violence offered to the will of the creature. 
And that's important in understanding where we get to in this chapter 
here. So we have God as sovereign. God is sovereign over the will 
of man, but he also does not coerce the will of man. And then 
the Confession is dealt with the nature of man. What does man look like? Who 
is man? And we see that man is corrupted by nature. Chapter 
6 tells us of this corruption. Chapter 6, paragraph Paragraph 
2 says that that our first parents by this sin fell from their original 
righteousness and communion with God and we in them Whereby death 
came upon all all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in 
all the faculties and parts of soul and body So that's important 
to to understand as well as we come to deal with this chapter 
here that man is wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts 
of soul and body. So that means that all of man's 
nature is corrupted by sin. Two weeks ago, when we looked 
at chapter 9 of free will, then we saw that man in this state 
of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good 
accompanying salvation." So that is where we find man, is that 
man, he still has his free, I'd rather use the word, unviolated 
will, he still has that unviolated will, but that will is now wholly 
determined to do evil and cannot do any spiritual good accompanying 
salvation as the as the Confession says. So we have a sovereign 
God, God that does not force the will of man, but a man that 
is completely set on evil now, and will not choose for good. 
But yet we also, but then the question remains, well how then 
can man be saved? We've seen that the Confession 
has taught us, has showed us that salvation is possible. We 
have God has made a covenant, God has provided a mediator in 
chapter 7 and 8. So salvation is possible. So now when we come 
to chapter 10, then it gives us that first step, we could 
say, the first step of man becoming saved. Now when we talk of the 
Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, there are steps prior to this 
in terms of God's election, but then we have calling, we have 
regeneration, and then faith and repentance, justification, 
adoption, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. So that would 
be the order. doesn't deal with them in that 
specific order, it more deals in terms of the Spirit's working, 
or God's working, and then man's. So that would be chapters 10 
through 13, so effectual calling, justification, adoption, and 
sanctification. And then we have the graces that 
man exercises. in this in terms of, in chapters 
14 to 18, so faith, repentance, good works, perseverance, and 
assurance. Now there's to be some mix in 
between those two in terms of the spirit working in the other, 
the graces that man exercises as well, but that's sort of the 
general layout that that the confession gives here. So now 
it doesn't, the confession doesn't use the term regeneration in 
this, or as the title there, now as we have laid it out as 
a step in the order of salutis, but it combines that, the calling 
and the regeneration into one, as is using the terminology here 
of effectual calling. And the idea here is not to, 
it's not to just abstract the regeneration out of the gospel, 
message, but it's to really put it in its covenantal context 
that we have here. If we realize that prior to being 
called, we are in Adam, that he is our covenant representative 
in the covenant of works. And all men, by natural generation, 
are in Adam. Or, I think the Confession uses 
the terminology, ordinary generation. So we are in Adam as our representative. But there is a second, another 
representative, covenantal representative, one who met the conditions of 
the covenant of works. And that's chapter 8, is the 
Mediator Christ. He has meant those terms. So the Bible tells us that, you 
know, by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So also 
by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. So in 
terms of covenant representation there. As in Adam all die, even 
so in Christ shall all be made alive. So, going from being in 
Adam to being in Christ is by virtue of the covenant of grace, 
where man is brought into Christ. But this process, then, of going 
there is the effectual calling here. It sort of encompasses 
that process of going from in Adam to being in Christ. So, if natural generation makes 
someone in Adam, then spiritual regeneration and belief in the 
Word of God and the truths contained therein is what brings someone 
into Christ. So from being out of Christ, 
against Christ, to being in Christ. So how does this work then? So 
that's where the paragraph 1 starts out then, goes with this. 
So first it deals with the recipients of this effectual call. Who are 
the recipients? It tells us very clearly, those 
whom God hath predestined unto life. So again, now the effectual 
calling is not the outward call of the gospel. Now the outward 
call is part of it, to be sure. The outward call comes to, you 
know, is the call to come to Christ, you know, without money, 
without price. Look to me and be saved, all 
the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. So 
it's that outward calling is necessary, and that call goes 
out to whoever hears the gospel. But what we do need to understand 
the gospel, we do need to hear it. Faith comes by hearing, hearing 
by the Word of God, Romans 10. So, but the effectual calling, 
this deduction of the effectual calling, answers the question, 
why then do some obey the call and believe the gospel and others 
reject it? What's the difference between, 
we think of in Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas preaching in Antioch, 
there are many, many believed the message, but then what's 
the difference between them and those who went and stirred up 
the devout men and women of the city to persecute Paul and Barnabas? You know, was it because certain 
ones decided to choose for Jesus? No, it was because, as Luke tells 
us, as he narrates it, he says, as many as were appointed unto 
eternal life believed. So we have, you know, Jesus says, 
many are called, few are chosen. So it's that It's the appointed 
unto eternal life is what makes the difference between those 
who will believe and those who don't. And again, it's the Spirit 
of God who works in the heart of the chosen, of the elect, 
to make this call effectual for their salvation. So effectual 
calling is just the outworking of the doctrine of election. Paul says in Romans 8, moreover 
whom he predestined, he also called. So it's that next step 
or the outworking of that predestination. So God determines who he would 
save, who he would bring into union with Christ through the 
Mediator. Then the Word and the Spirit 
carry out the change needed in the heart of man to bring him 
into this union. And that gives us, then, the 
agents of this effectual call. It tells us here that God does 
this by His Word and His Spirit. So, both of these are necessary 
in one coming into Christ. So, the Word of God is necessary, 
again, because, as I said, how shall they believe? On Him whom 
they have not heard. So, believing the Gospel involves, 
it means believing propositional truths. Things that are concepts 
and truths that we need to grasp, we need to understand and believe. And those truths, of course, 
are contained in the Word of God. But we need the Holy Spirit 
there is necessary to change the hearts, to enable people 
to believe these things. Robert Shaw, he says, the Word 
is the outward means employed. The Holy Spirit is always the 
efficient agent in calling men into the kingdom of grace. So 
it's the two are working together. One man has said, without the 
word, the spirit is mute. And without the spirit, the word 
is lifeless. So without the spirit, the call 
is not effectual. The call may go out, but the 
call is not effectual. But without the Word, then the 
Spirit, I guess hypothetically we could say the Spirit could 
regenerate a dead heart, but if there's no truth for that 
person to understand, to believe, and to comprehend, they still 
will not be saved. Justification is by faith alone. 
So we have both the Word, and the spirit necessary for salvation. The word to supply the truth, 
the spirit to provide the change of heart. So then what change 
of heart is needed? So it says here, the Confession 
says that God is pleased in His appointed and accepted time to 
call out of that state of sin and death in which they are by 
nature. So, as I mentioned briefly at 
the beginning there, what is that state, the state of sin 
and death that we're in? As chapter 9, paragraph 3 says, 
we've wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good 
accompanying salvation. So if man is to be saved, he 
needs to be called out of this state of sin. He will not do 
it on his own. And the reason for this is because 
his will is corrupted. His will is in bondage to this 
sinful nature. He will not choose against his 
will. So his nature needs to be changed. And that's what the effectual 
call is, is that it's regeneration in a changing of the nature of 
man. So this answers the claims that 
the Armenians would have, who say that man exercises his free 
will in responding to the outward call of the gospel, without the 
change of nature, without his will being changed. The current 
will that he has is the one that he exercises in order to choose 
for Jesus. And again, Arminianism comes 
in many flavors. There's all sorts of different 
concepts of pervenient grace that sort of nudge the believer 
along and things like that. But they're really not dealing, 
honestly, with the state that man is in. That man is a fallen, 
creature and that he will not come. It's not a matter that 
Calvinism does not teach that man can't make choices, that 
man is some sort of a robot. Calvinism says that man won't 
make that choice for good because of who he is by nature, that 
fallen sinful nature. So the Holy Spirit has to affect 
change in the heart of a fallen man. If the Holy Spirit would not 
do so, then no one would be saved, because no one would want to 
be saved, because our will is other, it's against God. So then, 
what does this change look like here? First, the confession tells 
us that it's an enlightening of their minds, spiritually and 
savingly, to understand the things of God. So, the Bible tells us 
that man, by nature, in this state of sin, is in spiritual 
blindness. Not just spiritual enmity, where 
he hates God, but spiritual blindness, where he does not understand 
the things of God. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14 says 
it very clearly, but the natural man does not receive the things 
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can 
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So man 
cannot... Yes, he can grasp certain elements 
of truth, but that understanding of everything, how it's working 
together, it does not make sense to the natural man. And therefore, 
his eyes need to be open. He needs to be able to understand 
these things. There needs to be a reversal 
of the effects of the Fall. The effects of the Fall was us 
falling into the state of sin and blindness. So there needs 
to be a reversal of that, a restoration or a recreation. And that's exactly 
what the Bible tells us, that if anyone is in Christ, he is 
a new creation. All old things have passed away. 
Behold, all things have become new. That's 2 Corinthians 5, 
17. Now you can turn your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 for 
a minute. Paul explains that in more detail 
there. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 
1 and following. Therefore, since we have this 
ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart, 
but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking 
in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but 
by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every 
man's conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel 
is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds 
the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the 
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of 
God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, 
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for 
Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine 
out of darkness, so the God who said in Genesis, the God who 
said, let there be light, it's that God who has shone in our 
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face of Christ Jesus. So, very clear there that we 
need that enlightening of our understanding of our minds, of 
our spiritual eyes, to understand the things of God, and that we 
might understand the concepts fully and truly that we need 
to believe and understand in order to be saved. So it gives 
us the ability to understand and spiritually discern the truths 
of Scripture. So it's a restoration of our 
mind. So we talk about that man is 
body and soul. Within the soul, we have the 
faculties of mind and will. This is now dealing with the 
mind. the being restored. The mind has been corrupted. 
Here the mind is being restored to, in the terminology of being 
blind and now seeing, you know, darkness, spiritual darkness, 
not understanding to understanding the truths of Scripture. So that 
is the restoration of mind that we have here. Now the confession 
goes on to speak of the restoration of the will of man. So both are 
corrupted, as I mentioned. So it's not enough just to have 
the mind restored, we need the will restored as well. And then 
it says here, the confession says, so taking away their heart 
of stone and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their 
wills. So we're given a new heart and 
a new will. Ezekiel 36, 26 to 27, that's 
where this terminology comes from there. Moreover, I will 
give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I 
will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you 
a heart of flesh. So this is the the faculty of 
the will of man being restored by the Holy Spirit. So again, 
the heart is the seat of the mind. It's what What controls the thoughts and 
emotions and the decisions of a man comes from his heart. So this old heart of stone, as 
the Bible calls it, it's a fallen, sinful heart. It will not choose 
for God. But this new heart, and the Holy 
Spirit gives a new heart, and this new heart is now one that 
is able to do good. In Colossians 3 verse 10, Paul 
says that we're to put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge 
according to the image of him who created him. So this new 
man, this new creature, or this new heart or new will that we 
have, we're to It is being renewed in the image of him who created 
him. So it's talking of that restoration to the state that 
Adam was in. When Adam was created in the 
garden, he was created in the image of God, and then before 
that image was broken by the fall, and he had the ability 
to do good in there. Now, we are being restored to 
that. Now, we're not being restored 
to the state of innocence. Now, Adam was created in a state of 
innocence. He had not sinned at that point, but Adam did have 
that ability to do good and or to do evil. So, but we are restored to that, 
or being restored to that, where we are able to do good now. And the Holy Spirit, again, is 
the one who works that change in the heart with the result 
that we now are able to do good. Our will has been changed to 
a will that is able to do good. So then it says here that He, 
by His almighty power, determining them to do that which is good, 
and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ. So when we understand 
now with a new mind, we understand the truth revealed in the Word, 
and we see Jesus as the Savior, and our will is now changed to 
desire what is good, then we will go to Christ. That's what 
we talk about, the effectual call. Or sometimes you've heard 
the word, you know, irresistible grace. We talk about irresistible 
grace. Not meaning that the sinner is drawn against his will, that 
he cannot resist, and he's pulled into, you know, kicking and screaming 
out of darkness into marvelous light against his will. That's 
not what it means at all there, irresistible grace, but rather 
it's that the mind understands that Christ is the only way of 
salvation, and the new will desires Him, and therefore, of course, 
He's going to come to him in faith. He would never choose 
not to come. Because that would be now choosing 
against His will, something that man cannot do. We talked about 
that when we talked about the nature of man in chapter 9, that 
man will not choose against his will. So now with this new will, 
and being renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, he now will 
choose for Christ, because his will His will wants him to do 
that, determines him to choose for Christ. So it's irresistible 
in that sense there, that why would he choose another way? 
His will is determining him to choose that way. And that's now 
why the Confession says, so yeah, they come most freely being made 
willing by His grace. So the response of faith in Christ, 
of coming to Christ, it comes from the will of man. His will 
is not forced or coerced in any way. They do come freely. And again, it's because they 
have been made willing. As Psalm 110 verse 3 says, God 
or your people will be willing in the day of your power. So 
they don't come through coercion they don't come through, to use 
the words of the Confession, through a violation of their 
will, against their will. Man is not a robot. The Confession, 
Calvinism has always upheld and always affirmed the liberty that 
man has as a rational creature. One of the most common accusations 
against Calvinism is they say, well, you're just making man 
into a robot. If God is sovereign, then man just becomes a robot 
that does, you know, as he's programmed to do. But that's 
not what Calvinism teaches. And our confession is very clear 
here and very just really wants to uphold that, that man is able 
to make those choices. He does come to the Savior by 
means of his will, but it happens because of that, and it's only 
possible because of that change that happens in his heart. That 
heart of stone that is against God is taken out, and a new heart 
that loves God is put in, and now man will make that, that 
decision. If you want to use the terminology 
of decision-making in terms of coming to Christ, I know we tend 
to shy away from it because you need to be very careful when 
you use that in saying that I have decided to follow Jesus. We can 
use that terminology, but we have to be very careful in that 
we understand that it wasn't without the work of the Holy 
Spirit that that decision was made possible. We needed the 
Holy Spirit first to revive our dead hearts, to give us a new 
will that enables us to choose for Christ. So then, paragraph 
2 explains that in a little bit more detail then. So first it 
gives us then a reminder of the doctrines of grace here, that 
this effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, 
and it's not from anything at all. foreseen in man, nor from 
any power or agency in the creature." So, again, this is answering 
the claims of Arminianism that would say either, A, God looked 
in God's foreknowledge, meant foresight, where He looked through 
time and saw you do something, and therefore this was a response. on God's part, to the decision 
of man, that God gave him this grace to do this. So it's answering 
that. We just see how that's just simply 
not biblical. But nor is there any power or 
agency in the creature in this revival process. Man does not 
play a role in there. Man does not have any sort of, 
as Arminianism teaches, that man has that ability to choose 
and he sort of works with the Spirit in order to make his decision 
for Christ, but rather it's saying, no, this man is entirely passive 
in this entire process of renewal and regeneration. of his new 
heart. So then, because he's dead in 
sins and trespasses, as we've seen here, but then until being 
quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. So after the Holy 
Spirit does the quickening, does the renewing, the reviving, then 
man is enabled to answer that call of the Gospel there. So, in which answering the call 
of the gospel, of course, is believing in Christ, coming to 
Christ in faith, in repentance for our salvation. But notice 
how the confession, it allows us to uphold all the truths that 
are taught in Scripture regarding man's salvation, regarding God's 
sovereignty and man's responsibility. You know, it's the only way to 
properly and to rightly, to biblically explain how God can be sovereign 
and yet how man is not, his will is not violated, he's not coerced 
into acting against that will. You know, so it tells us that 
man is passive in this regeneration process, and that is wholly of 
grace, but then it also tells us that it's an act of the will 
that man comes to Christ. So it deals rightly with these 
biblical truths of God being sovereign. God not violating 
the will of the creature, and the biblical doctrine of man 
being completely and wholly unable to come to Christ in his current 
state of being in Adam and fallen in Adam. So, if we take the path 
of Arminianism, then we have man being active in this entire 
process. We do so, for one, we do so at 
the expense of the sovereignty of God, and we do so at the expense 
of the clear teaching of Scripture of the state that man is in. God won't be absolute sovereign, 
and man won't be absolutely unable if you're going to take the Arminian 
route. Now, the other opposite, then, 
is to take the hyper-Calvinism route and say that man is entirely 
passive in the entire process of coming into salvation, that 
he never enacts his will. And therefore, you do so dare 
I say it, at the expense of man's salvation. Because if you're 
not calling man to repent and man to believe, because you're 
saying man is entirely passive through this whole process, then 
man will not, if they do not believe, and obey the Gospel, which are 
acts of the will, for their salvation, they will not be saved. Now, 
I'm not saying that people in a hyper-Calvinistic setting can't 
be saved. That's not what I'm saying at all. God still works, 
and man still can believe on Christ in that situation. But 
the doctrine, logically carried out, says that man is entirely 
passive, so why would we proclaim the Gospel to him then? So the 
confession guides us biblically down the middle of these two 
errors and deals properly with all what the Bible has taught 
us, what the confession has laid out for us in these steps, bringing 
us to this point of all these things that I mentioned. So again, 
then, next time somebody says, you know, I decided to follow 
Jesus, well, you don't need to, you know, to cage-stage Calvinist 
them and saying that you never decided for Jesus. That's just, 
you know, that's just, you know, we don't need to do that. But, 
you know, we also, if someone says that they're waiting for 
God to save them, you know, then we need to call them. No. Faith 
and repentance, you know, as the Scripture tells us to do, 
and we know, we can teach them that, you know, when they believe, 
when they When they have faith, we know it wasn't because they 
exercised their dead will. It was because the Spirit revived 
that dead will, made it new, and therefore enabled them to 
repent and believe. So, your people shall be willing 
in the day of your power. That's Psalm 110.3. If we understand 
that, it really just answers all of these questions and these 
problems that we don't get into trying to understand. And even, 
quite frankly, even in the little bit of understanding of, in the 
reform circles, a little bit of understanding that I have, 
there's even, this is even being People are getting mixing this 
up in people who claim to be 100% reformed are mixing this 
up and starting to teach some sort of a middle knowledge type 
of idea that God has because they're trying to understand, 
answer the question of how can God be sovereign without violating 
the will of the creature? And that's a mystery. The Bible 
doesn't explain that to us, but it's trying to. They're trying 
to to solve that mystery and just getting into all sorts of 
problems, you know, creating a middle knowledge in God. whatever 
it may be, but yet somewhere along the line you're negotiating 
some of these clear teachings of Scripture, be it the absolute 
sovereignty of God, be it the fallen state of man, whatever 
it may be. So again, the Confession grounds 
us, keeps us upholding all of these truths as we find them 
in the Scriptures. And then we have this last statement 
here in paragraph 2, and this, "...by no less power than that 
which raised up Christ from the dead." You know, the same power 
that raised Christ from the dead is the same power that revived 
our dead hearts. And in Ephesians chapter 1, Paul 
says this, we can read that, chapter 1, verse 15, Ephesians 
1. Therefore I also, after I heard 
of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 
do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in 
my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation 
in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding, being 
enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, 
what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 
and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe 
according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked 
in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him 
at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality 
and power and might and dominion in every name that is named, 
not only in this age but also in that which is to come. So 
Paul, very clearly there, is speaking of the renewal of our 
mind, you know, the revelation in the knowledge of Him, the 
eyes of our understanding, being enlightened. But then it's this 
power, he says it's the same power that raised Christ from 
the dead, seated Him in a place of absolute authority over all 
the created realm. It's that same power that revived 
that revived our dead heart and made us one with Christ. And 
this is the power that we rely on when we proclaim the gospel, 
as we have been commissioned by the Lord to go and make disciples 
of all the nations, to proclaim the truth as it is in Jesus. 
You know, this power is the power that we rely on. You know, we 
share the gospel and we know that men are dead in their sins 
and trespasses, that they cannot respond to the gospel. So we 
don't resort to fatalism and say, well, then I'm not going 
to share the gospel. It's useless. You know, why would 
you preach the gospel to a dead corpse? You know, that's fatalism, 
but rather we know that God has the power to revive the dead 
hearts. And we proclaim the word that 
is necessary, as we saw in paragraph one, the word that is necessary 
for salvation. But we know that God has the 
power and we rely on God's power to revive the dead hearts and 
enable them. to believe. So we don't want 
to resort to fatalism when it comes to evangelism, but we should 
be more resolved than ever to proclaim the gospel to all the 
nations. I always think of Ezekiel. He's brought in a vision to a 
valley full of dry bones. It says, indeed, they were very 
dry. They were dead as dead. But God says to Ezekiel, He says, 
son of man, can these bones live? And what's his answer? He says, 
oh Lord God, you know. So if it was up to him, the answer 
would have been no. If he looked at this and says, 
these are all dead bones, and God says, son of man, can these 
live? He said, no, they're dead. But no, he knows that God knows 
that they can live. He says, Lord, you know the answer 
because you are the one who is able to make them live. And then we see what happens. He proclaims the word of the 
Lord to them, and the bones come together into skeletons, tendons, 
and flesh are added, breath is given to them, and they come 
to life. It's amazing. And God explains 
it to Ezekiel there. He says, I will put my spirit 
in them. No, he's speaking of He says, 
speaking of the nation of Israel, not context there, but his people, 
they're dead, but I will put my spirit in them and they will 
come to life. And this happened when Ezekiel 
preached the word, proclaimed the word of the Lord to them. 
So that should fire us up to proclaim the gospel, to know 
that God can do that, that God uses the Word and the Spirit, 
but we get to be ministers of the Word, not just as a pastor, 
but as all of us, as believers, to proclaim the truth as it is 
in Jesus to, you know, to sinners, you know, we get to proclaim 
that word in the gospel of Jesus Christ and God takes that word 
and by His power can revive dead hearts. It's truly amazing, you 
know, in the words of our pastor, most blessed and most glorious. 
It really is. And then our next, we have paragraph 
three here. We have a carefully worded statement 
here. Elect infants dying in infancy 
are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit. So 
for one, this paragraph here, it's not in the confession to 
discuss whether all infants are saved or not. That's not the 
purpose of the paragraph. The purpose of this paragraph, 
well, for one, it does guard us against a dogmatic view that 
all infants are saved. The confession is just being 
honest with what the Bible says. We can't take a dogmatic stance 
on that because the Bible does not allow us to go there in the 
sense that all infants are saved. But more importantly, what it's 
doing here is it's guarding against the view that all infants are 
damned, so the opposite view. And because, yes, there are those 
who believe that. According to David Dixon, the 
Anabaptists believe that as well, that all infants and and also 
those, you know, handicapped, those who are incapable of being 
outwardly called, that they are all damned. And now the reasoning 
is basically, you know, because we understand that the work of 
the Spirit is necessary in reviving the heart of a sinner, but then 
once their heart is revived, then that sinner repents and 
believes in Christ for his salvation. So then, So then we can see where 
the question naturally arises then, well, what about a child 
who the Lord took in the womb or in infancy? They weren't able 
to understand the gospel truths and to believe in Christ. So 
if we're teaching that the only way of salvation is through faith 
in Christ, after our heart has been regenerated and then we've 
been enabled to believe and comprehend these truths as we find them 
in the Word, If you're saying that that's the only way of salvation, 
well then an infant can't be saved, and there's no hope of 
salvation for anyone who dies before they reach this age of 
accountability, if you want to use that, or the age of comprehension 
where they can understand these truths. And again, the same thing 
for the mentally handicapped. You know, those who are incapable 
of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word. So, 
you know, but the confession is saying here, what it says 
here, Nexon, is that God works when, and where, and how He pleases. And that's important to understand 
that there. Now, one man says the normative 
way of salvation is effectual calling, which is the spirit 
working through the word, but the inclusion of paragraph three 
highlights God's sovereignty and prerogative in the matter 
of infants and others who are incapable of being outwardly 
called. And that's James P. Butler. So the point is this, that if 
God can take a spiritually blind heart and enable it to believe 
the truth as it is in Jesus, he most definitely can take a 
cognitively impaired one and enable it to believe in the Lord 
Jesus. So whether that cognitively impaired 
mind is because of a mental handicap or it's because of infancy, God 
can enable that mind to believe in Christ. We don't need to be 
able to see the evidence. If God can do that to a spiritually 
dead heart, He can definitely do it to an impaired mind to 
restore and enable them to believe. And the reference that the Confession 
gives here of John 3, verse 8, I think is very fitting. You know, the wind blows where 
it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where 
it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of 
the Spirit. You know, so this paragraph ought 
to give us great encouragement when we think of these matters 
here, that, you know, we're not teaching that, then the Confession 
is not teaching, Calvinism isn't teaching that, that, you know, 
unless you believe and obey the Gospel in this sense where we 
can all, you know, your mind is working the same way everyone 
else's is, then you can't be saved. This tells us that, no, 
you can be saved. God can make even a cognitively 
impaired mind believe. Now, if we adopted an Arminian 
free will, or an Arminian approach to free will, and salvation was 
dependent upon the unchanged will of an infant or a mentally 
incompetent, then we would have to say, well, then no infant 
or handicapped person would ever be saved. That's the logical 
conclusion of an Arminian view on free will. So we can praise 
God that he's sovereign in the election and bringing to salvation 
all of his elect, not just those who have the mental comprehension, 
which is not impaired in any way. So we can praise God. We can take great encouragement 
from that. And then we have paragraph four. Here we've dealt with, you know, 
sort of drawn out most of these implications from paragraph four 
as we've dealt with this so far. But it's just basically dealing 
with the non-elect and the exclusivity of the word and spirit in working 
out salvation. That there is no other way of 
salvation but through the proclamation of the Christian gospel and the 
work of the spirit in reviving the dead hearts. So, you know, 
and it says here, some may be called by the ministry of the 
word. And, you know, so that same gospel 
proclamation, like I mentioned earlier in Acts 13, you know, 
the gospel was proclaimed to all. You know, why did some believe 
and why did some not? They were all called by the same 
ministry of the word. And it says here they may even 
have some common operations of the spirit. And I think of the 
parable of the sower. The sower went out to sow and 
there was some that fell fell on the pathway and, you know, 
there was no response at all. But there was some of the seed 
that fell, and there was a change of life. And I think, you know, 
we have that, we see that. You know, the gospel can be proclaimed, 
and some people might, you know, they might be emotionally impacted 
by it and resolve to change their life. And there's, you know, 
it's that seed that sort of springs up, but then it withers and dies, 
whether it's because it's founded in, you know, shallow soil or 
it's choked out by the cares of this world, whatever it may 
be, the soil was not prepared, did not fall on good ground. 
A heart that had been effectively changed by the Holy Spirit. So 
there can be a confession of mouth, there can be an outward 
putting up the hand, whatever it may be, a decision made for 
Jesus. But if that heart has not been changed, if that soil 
was not prepared, then there is no salvation possible. And then we have in that parable, 
like I said, there were some who refused the word altogether, 
and those who do wholly reject the Christian religion, and that's 
what the paragraph says at the end there. So it's not a... you know, all roads lead to Rome 
type of, you know, that whatever, you just pick a religion and 
whichever one you believe, as long as you're sincere, you go 
to heaven. No, the Bible is very clear that there is, you know, 
it's not about ordering your life. you know, according to the light 
of nature, it says here. So, you know, just being a good 
person. I think we've all come across 
those type of people that, you know, are you a Christian? No. Are you going to go to heaven? 
Well, yeah. Why? Well, because I'm a good person. 
You know, they try to do their, they're just, they think, you 
know, as long as I just do my best, which is just ordering 
their lives according to the light of nature, you know, obeying 
the moral law that's on their heart, you know, it's kind of 
as best as they can. There's no salvation in that. You cannot be saved that way. 
Or here, what it says here, the law of whatever religion that 
you profess. Nor is there salvation in any 
other, for there is no other name under heaven given among 
men by which we must be saved. Acts 4.12. very clear that without 
the working of the Word of God, the truths of Scripture, the 
life, the death, the resurrection of Christ, all of the truths 
that are contained in the Scriptures, without that, without the working 
of the Holy Spirit, no one would be saved. So that brings us to 
the end of this chapter. Now, just in conclusion, then, 
just a few things to know. One is, as I mentioned earlier 
as well, but just to appreciate how this doctrine accounts for 
all the biblical data that we have regarding God's sovereignty, 
man's free will or unviolated will, man's fallen state, and 
the call of the gospel. So again, the mystery remains 
in God's sovereignty without violating the will of the creature. 
But we don't need to. We don't need to solve that mystery. 
The Bible is just clear. It gives us both. It gives us 
both sides. We don't need to solve that mystery, because when 
we try to solve that mystery, the way Arminians would, or the 
way Molinism would, or whatever it may be, you will end up sacrificing 
one of these doctrines, or more, one or more of the doctrines 
that we find very clearly in Scripture. So we can just be 
thankful and be appreciative of the Calvinistic doctrine. We don't consider ourselves Calvinist 
because we have an infatuation with Calvin. It's just because 
Calvinism is the title that we use for the doctrines of grace 
because they're just so clearly taught in the scripture and they're 
one that makes sense of all of the truths that we find in the 
scriptures. And then second, we have to understand 
and take seriously the need to proclaim the Gospel, that the 
Word and the Spirit are both needed in this effectual call, 
and we are commissioned to be God's agents in proclaiming the 
Word of God, the Gospel. of God and calling all men everywhere 
to repentance. So we are, you know, as Paul 
said, we plant and we water, but God gives the increase. So 
we can trust in God as we proclaim the gospel, but take seriously 
that proclamation of the gospel, to trust in Him and to proclaim 
that word, knowing that both of those are needed, are necessary 
for the salvation of man. So that brings me to the end 
here. So does anyone have any questions 
or any comments on this at all? Well, I'll close in prayer if 
there's any more after we do have a few minutes before here. 
So let's close in a word of prayer. Our Father in Heaven, thank You, 
Lord, for Your Word. Thank You for the truths of Your 
Word and, Lord, how we praise You for this doctrine that we 
have looked at now, Lord. We know by experience, we know 
by the truths of Your Word that we prior to our salvation, we're 
dead in our sin and our trespasses. And Lord, if it was not for you 
renewing us, restoring us, and giving us that new heart and 
that new mind, new will to desire the things of God, Lord, we would 
have continued in rebellion against you, continued in that state 
of enmity, and would have resisted and not come to the Savior. But Lord, how we thank you for 
that in Christ we are a new creation. Lord, we praise you for that 
and we ask that we would respond in thanksgiving and in praise 
for the great God that you are. And Lord, we do ask that you 
would be with us this morning as we continue to worship you 
in the upcoming service. Lord, we do pray your blessing 
on our pastor as he proclaims the word. We pray that you fill 
him with your Holy Spirit to rightly divide the word of truth 
to proclaim the truth as it is in Jesus and Lord we do pray 
that this morning that for the for the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit in among us not only in your in your people whom you 
have saved in the to to apply this message to our hearts and 
build us up in our most holy faith but Lord that that you 
would come in and in that powerful way in the hearts, the dead hearts 
of sinners who come in among us this morning and that you 
would revive those dead hearts and shine the light of the gospel 
of the Lord Jesus into their hearts, that they would see the 
Savior and that with a new, revived, restored will that they would 
flee to the Savior as that only way of salvation. So Lord, we do ask your blessing 
on us. We pray you receive our praises 
as we sing and as we worship you. Lord, we come before you, 
not in our own good deeds and our own righteousness, but we 
come before you clothed in the righteousness of your son, the 
Lord Jesus. And it's in his name that we 
pray all these things. Amen.