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Luke 14:15-24

In the “TULIP” system of Calvinism, the ‘I’ stands for Irresistible Grace.  If the Calvinist system were true (it is not), the whole thing would work like so:

1.       Before God made anything, He decided to burn some people in hell while others would eventually get to live with him in heaven and take turns dangling the “depraved” over the flames of hellfire (this is the stupid blasphemy of Jonathan Edwards who wrote “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God).

2.       God chose the ones that burn and the ones who would “turn.”  There is an exact number of “turns” – no one cares how many burns there are.

3.       The ones who will “turn” are eternal beings –more or less- and never really were human… They were gOdS that didn’t know their own gOdness for a while.  Like Mormons…sort of.

4.       Hellbent people (the ones that cannot “turn”) are trash that is good for nothing but to burn.  However, they mostly look and act very similar to the “turn” crowd (sometimes better).  “Turns” and burns all live in the same world together…beginning to sound suspiciously like Sneetches on the beaches!

5.       Burns can sometimes be fooled by the Holy Spirit into thinking they are “turns” or have a shot at being one.  (This is where Calvin went too far and proved that he was spending too much Pharisaical time with the devil!)

6.       When “turns” are injected with what they call “faith” (they should respell it as fiat-th) they turn from their cloudy condition and receive enlightenment (sounds like Buddha…).  This injection is done to them and there is nothing they can do to stop it.  God chooses them and inoculates them – they can offer no resistance.  So they claim to receive Irresistible Grace.  Never mind the cross of Jesus…they receive salvation that was always theirs anyway.

The biblical problem with this nonsensical system is that it fails to match the picture given to us in Matthew 22:1-14 (or Luke 14:15-24).  Isn’t it interesting that the called/chosen (“turns”) were able to resist the “sovereign” demands of their king?  If I were making a preaching outline of these verses, I would say:

I.The elect refuse.

II. The elect revile.

III. The elect ravage.

IV. The elect replaced.

V. The elect rejected.

Conclusion: It is better to be a reprobate (“burn”) than a Calvinistically elect reject.  God invites the reprobate and the reject to TURN.

The cross of Jesus Christ is the turning point.

Come to the cross.

What is He looking for?

Gotta love a guy like Zacchaeus with his hybrid name (Zach from Zachariah and the Latin ending 'aeus') and his hybrid condition of working for the Romans and living among the Jews.  He is a reject in both realms.  He certainly does not fit the criteria for being redeemable according to the Pharisees/Calvinists of his day.  Here, certainly, is a reprobate.  The people are shocked that Jesus would invite Himself to lunch with a "sinner."  Zacchaeus is not just a garden variety sinner like Peter or the sons of Zebedee who might be let in  to heaven if the Pharisees are feeling generous at the judgment.  The Pharisees considered the sinfulness of ordinary Jews to be just their bad luck...like the stupidity of Hindu "karma" (by the way, the irony of the Pharisees is that they were gung ho for the law of Moses but had Greek Philosophy imbedded in their hearts...same as Calvinists.)  However, in their judgment, Zacchaeus had achieved the full status of "sinner."  He was as unclean as a leper.

The wonderful thing about this story is that it is the context to one of the most beautiful expressions of God's love beside John 3:16.  "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save, that which is lost." Luke 19:10 KJV.  If you have ever been lost, you know how beautiful it is when someone tells you how to find your way again; especially when he tells you what to look for even before you get there.  You know you can trust that more than an electronic GPS.  The Holy Spirit is always/all ways directing us to the cross.  He can see it and how to get us back to it no matter what wide gate with a broad path has taken us into the brambles of our own stupidity.

The curious thing about the truth expressed in Luke 19:10 is that Calvinists ignore its obvious rebuke of their stupidity.  What in the world is Jesus seeking?  If the Calvinist formula of pre-packaged certification before creation and owning a piece of the eternal flame (Gnostic) as an eternal being (Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness...y'all are in bad company!) that gets activated in individual consciousness by the word (aren't you Calvinists lucky that you can read...) is true, then why is Jesus looking for them?  They are not "lost" like the rest of us who are unlucky or "sinners."  They are pre-saved and lucky and the ministry of Jesus, according to Calvinist doctrine, is play acting...a sham.  Notice that verse 9 tells the judgmental people at the door of Zacchaeus' house that "salvation" had come there.  He certainly had come there and found what He was looking for: Lostness. 

That salvation, which is Jesus, is available at the cross.  There is no other formula for finding your way home.  Come to the cross.

Count them if you dare!

Limited atonement is the L of the Calvinist TULIP.  The rationale for coming up with this unbiblical idea of God's saving grace is an extension of the pre-destination logic that decides (according to human reasoning) that God only had room for a few wretched sinners in His heart and the rest are going to hell where they (unluckily) belong.  If God preselected the (lucky) few, then He knows exactly how many there are and He has arranged with Jesus to only shed just the right number of drops of blood for that number.  So the idea of this limitation was logically arrived at by looking at the redemption situation as a whole and helping God with the math.

Unfortunately for Calvin (who didn't write the Bible, by the way!) and other TULIP growers, the Bible denounces this exercise of human reasoning in Revelation 7:9.  The number of humans around the throne is impossible for humans to count.  Another way of expressing the same thing would be to say that there is no human accounting system to apply to this number.  Calvinistic imagination of how God works out the number cannot be properly applied.  Again, one might even be able to say that, standing among the redeemed around the throne, everyone there would be able to say, "there's no accounting for how David Price could be here from any human point of view."  I am glad that my claim to heaven is based on the unaccountably wonderful love of Jesus on the cross and not on human accounting systems.

By the way, the danger of human accounting systems is just over the hill from anyone who is reading Revelation 7.  When you get to the 13th chapter, you will find the enigmatic number 666 (the giant's version of 500) established as the final attempt at blending human reasoning and satanic enlistment procedures.  There is a limited damnation.  Only certain of the humans that surrender themselves to Satan will be numbered with the false prophet as they make up the full complement of the 7 headed beast.  Blasphemers of the Holy Spirit, they get no opportunity to stand before the Lord in judgment.  Like their cousins, the Pharisees, their judgment is built into their choice of partnerships.

God's math doesn't add up in human accounting systems. Dirt and sin plus Jesus (who numbered Himself with the transgressors...not the pre-selected) equals new creation.  Come to the cross and find out how God's math works.